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Democrats looking forward to their takeover of Congress might consider looking backward as well — to November 1994. Representative Sue Kelly, of New York’s Nineteenth District, which includes all of Putnam County and part of Westchester, was one of the 73 new GOP representatives swept into the House that year. She was narrowly defeated on Tuesday by John Hall, former lead singer of the band Orleans. “This was a blue tsunami, and I learned, because I’m in that class of 1994 that was a red tsunami, that there are people who get elected and don’t last,” she says perhaps a bit defensively, after not lasting. “What you have here is a huge overcorrection. The Democrats now own Capitol Hill. The public won’t let that stand for very long.” Ed Rollins, former White House political director and Republican strategist, says an antiwar fervor gave “good Republican districts to the Democrats” in 2006. “There are around ten to twelve seats that could very easily swing back.” Long Island representative Peter King, a Republican who was reelected with 57 percent of the vote, says, “People voted against what was happening in Iraq. It was an anti-vote. But you can’t get reelected in 2008 just on an anti-vote. They’ve got to show something.”
— Wren Abbott and Amos Barshad
