Democrats Sweep Majority of Races; Furcolo, Rockefeller, Brown Elected

In the greatest Congressional victory since Roosevelt's 1936 triumph, the Democrats effectively broke the power of the Republican party in the Midwest and the Far West. Capturing almost two-thirds of each House of Congress, the Democrats made the United States into a legislative one-party country for the next two years.

Latest available returns showed that the Democrats had captured 249 House seats as compared to 96 for the GOP, with 90 still undecided. The Senate figures showed that the Democrats had picked up 10 additional seats, giving them 59. The Republicans had 34, with three undecided.

Not only did the Democrats retain all their present Senate seats, but they added enough new ones to insure control of the Senate through at least 1962. Perhaps the most significant factor about the Democratic victory was that the farmers gave the Democrats more votes that at any time since Roosevelt.

Republican hopes that the farm revolt had been pacified were not realized. The Democrats picked up Congressional seats along the entire length of the Mississippi and Missouri River valleys.

The great California Republican defeat, coupled with the complete victory of Nelson Rockefeller in New York, poses the greatest threat vice-president Nixon has faced in his aspiration to the Presidency.

The magnitude of the Republican defeat, outside New York, makes Rockefeller an extremely likely possibility for the Republican nomination in 1960.

The only area in which the Republicans retained a semblance of their voting strength was in the industrial Northeast. In addition to their greatest victory, New York, the Republicans retained Senate seats in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Vermont.

In Congress, the liberals of both parties finally have enough strength to override the Southern Democrat-Republican coalition which has dominated Congress for the last 20 years.