WASHINGTON -- Tuesday night is shaping up as a big one for Republicans. The only question is how big.
An unusually large number of races are still up for grabs -- along with control of both houses of Congress -- as one of the nastiest midterm campaigns in years ends with a flood of negative ads.
Even if Democrats manage to win most of the close ones, analysts say, Republicans still will rack up major gains in contests for Congress, governor and state legislatures.
The back-from-the-brink candidacies of high-profile Democrats such as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo of New York and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California have spurred talk of a late Democratic surge.
But while races around the country seem to be tightening as the election nears, politicians in both parties say that Republicans, only two years after losing the White House, are in a commanding position heading into the closing hours of the 1994 campaign.
What makes this all the more remarkable is that the Republicans appear to be prospering in what should be a fertile political environment for President Clinton and his party: steady economic growth at home and peace abroad.
Instead, Mr. Clinton, facing the very real prospect of a conservative takeover of Congress and two more years of partisan bickering in Washington, is mounting a frantic effort this weekend to hold off the Republican tide. But as he flies from coast to coast and back, Air Force One is staying far away from the South, where his own popularity remains low and where much of the Republican surge is taking shape.
"I'm going where I can do the most good," says Mr. Clinton, who will wind up his campaign swing with stops today and tomorrow in California, Washington state, Minnesota, Michigan and Delaware.
Even in such traditionally Democratic states as New York and Maryland, Republican candidates for governor are mounting their strongest efforts in years. The GOP is expected to pick up at least five statehouses nationwide and has an outside shot to win the governorships of the eight largest states, including Texas and Florida, where sons of former President George Bush are in tight races with incumbent Democrats Ann Richards and Lawton Chiles. In the Senate, Republicans are extremely close to a takeover, with Republican candidates heavily favored to pick up at least four of the seven seats the party needs to gain control.
An additional eight seats -- six now held by Democrats, two by Republicans -- could go either way.
Among the races that could decide who rules the Senate for the next two years: the dead-even dogfight in Virginia between Oliver L. North and Sen. Charles S. Robb and the tightening Pennsylvania contest between incumbent Democrat Harris Wofford and Republican Rep. Rick Santorum, whose remarks about cutting Social Security have damaged his chances.
In the House, officials of both major parties are predicting Republican gains of at least 25 seats. That would increase Republican strength in the House to its highest level since the 1950s.
Among the endangered Democrats is Rep. Thomas S. Foley of Washington, who could become the first House speaker in more than a century to be unseated.
What once seemed unthinkable -- a 40-seat pickup that would give Republicans control of the House for the first time in 40 years -- is still within the realm of possibility.
"I do believe we're going to win the majority," declares Rep. Bill Paxon of New York, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. "We're on the verge of an incredible victory."
Similar Republican boasts have been written off as mere political hyperbole in the past. But not this time.
An unusually large number of House and Senate contests -- more than 100, by most estimates -- could still go either way, party officials say.
Yet even before the first ballots are counted, top Democrats, including senior White House aides, have conceded what amounts to a significant Republican victory by historic standards.
White House chief of staff Leon E. Panetta is predicting a Democratic loss of 25 House seats and three or four Senate seats. That estimate is twice the "normal" midterm loss for a party in power.
Since 1950, the president's party has lost an average of 12 House seats and no Senate seats in the first midterm election of his presidency.
Those losses typically come from marginal House seats that were gained two years earlier, when congressional candidates rode the new president's coattails into power.
But except in West Coast states, Mr. Clinton exerted no such pull in 1992; in fact, his party lost 10 House seats that year.
To explain the reasons behind the Republican tilt in the 1994 election, political scientists and politicians point to a variety of factors. They include:
Anti-incumbent mood
The anti-Washington, anti-incumbent anger of recent years has come back with a vengeance this year. The difference is that this time there's a Democrat in the White House to blame.
The stalemate that developed in the last session of Congress helped feed a widespread sense that nothing much has changed in Washington since Mr. Clinton took office.
In a prescient remark earlier this year, Democratic National Chairman David Wilhelm warned that "the greatest risk to us is to return to gridlock. As the governing party, our task is to govern and govern effectively."
By most accounts, there's more voter energy on the Republican side this fall. "We see much more intensity among Republican voters," says Paul Wilson, a Republican political consultant. "There's just a hunger to get to the polls and vote."
Conservative groups allied with the Republican Party -- anti-abortion activists, the gun lobby, the Christian Coalition and others -- are motivated by a desire to even the score with the Clinton administration. Meantime, many of the Democratic Party's base voters, particularly minorities, are expressing less enthusiasm about the election, polls indicate.
Despite his recent foreign policy successes, Mr. Clinton remains very unpopular in the South and much of the West, and he doesn't help much elsewhere.
"Clinton is the undergirding of the entire election," says Karl Rove, a Republican strategist in Austin, Texas.
Mr. Clinton has not done a single campaign-style event this fall in the South, where Republican challengers have tried to link Democratic incumbents to him.
"There is incredible hostility to President Clinton among white Southerners," says Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta, who described the no-win situation Mr. Clinton finds himself in. "They think he's a liberal, and when he moves in a conservative direction, they think he's a hypocrite and doesn't mean it."
Pocketbook issues are usually among the most important factors in any election. This year, they seem to be dealing the Democrats a double whammy. Despite three years of an economic recovery that has created millions of jobs, many Americans don't feel better off. Among the reasons: Families' purchasing power hasn't kept pace with inflation.
The combination of stagnant incomes and turmoil in the workplace, as corporate America continues to pare down and restructure, leaves millions of Americans nervous about the future. One in four adults fears that some close relative will lose his or her job in the next year, according to a recent CBS News/New York Times poll.
Meantime, the economic recovery has allowed secondary issues emerge as voter concerns -- in this case, crime, an issue that, polls indicate, is working to the Republicans' advantage.
"It wouldn't be surprising if we woke up Wednesday morning with Republicans having the majority of House and Senate seats in the South," says John J. Pitney, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College in California.
Besides being helped by Mr. Clinton's unpopularity, Republicans have benefited from congressional redistricting in the South.
Racial gerrymandering, which concentrated black voters in a few districts to ensure the election of blacks to Congress, has had the unintended effect of making surrounding districts more Republican.
With the retirement of many powerful senior Democrats -- 15 of the 31 Democrats leaving the House this year are from the South -- districts that showed a Republican trend years ago in presidential contests will finally display their true partisan color in this week's congressional election, experts predict.
Democrats insist that Republican attempts to nationalize the election have backfired. Mr. Clinton and the Democrats have, in fact, used the GOP's "Contract With America" to make the unsubstantiated charge that Republicans want to cut Social Security.
But Republican strategists, while agreeing that the "contract" strategy hasn't worked as planned, say that it did force GOP candidates to talk about the issues, and thus added some substance to their Clinton-bashing.
Among the issues being pushed by Republican challengers this fall: specific alternatives to the Clinton agenda on crime, welfare reform and other issues, as well as an overall message of less government that appears to fit the voters' mood in many parts of the country.
The wild card factor of 1994: Although anti-incumbent feelings are supposed to be stronger than ever, the real test of Tuesday's election is whether voters are angry enough to throw out their local congressmen. This year, only four incumbent congressmen were defeated in primaries (compared with 19 in 1992).
Though most analysts expect incumbents to get a lower-than-normal vote on Tuesday, at least 90 percent of the 383 incumbents seeking re-election are expected to win. Charles Cook, an independent campaign analyst, says that up to half the Democratic losses in the House are likely to take place in the 52 districts where no incumbent is running this fall.
A REPBUBLICAN YEAR?
CALIFORNIA
Senate
Huffington's $28 million may not be enough to unseat Sen. Feinstein (D)
Governor
Incumbent Wilson (R) expected to hold off Jerry Brown's sister Kathleen
FLORIDA
Governor
L Incumbent Chiles (D) has hands full against Bush son Jeb (R)
MARYLAND
Senate
Stealthy Sarbanes (D) shows sharp elbows against challenger Brock (R)
Governor
Surprising Sauerbrey (R) gives favored Glendening (D) a real race
MASSACHUSETTS
Senate
Liberal icon Ted Kennedy (D) rallies to solid lead over challenger Romney
MINNESOTA
Senate
Democrats' best hope to pick up a GOP seat.
NEW YORK
Governor
Cuomo (D) has seen better political days but is narrow favorite here.
PENNSYLVANIA
Senate
GOP challenger Santorum's Social Security blunder gives embattled incumbent Wofford (D) new life
TENNESSEE
Senate
Democrats could lose two Senate seats in VP Gore's home state.
TEXAS
Governor
Incumbent Richards (D) and Bush son George (R) in Lone Star State toss-up.
VIRGINIA
Senate
Down-and-dirty battle of ex-Marines North (R) and Robb (D) is too close to call.
WASHINGTON STATE
House
L Speaker Foley (D) fighting for political life in tight race.
VERMONT
Senate
Moderate Jeffords (R) becomes party's most endangered incumbent
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mayor
L Marion Barry a shoo-in, caps political comeback of the year.
HOUSE
Current lineup:
256 Democrats
178 Republicans
1 Independent
Forecast: Republican gain of 25-35 seats
SENATE
Current lineup:
56 Democrats
44 Republicans
Forecast: Republican gain of 5-8 seats
GOVERNORSHIPS
Current lineup:
29 Democrats
20 Republicans
1 Independent