DEMOCRATS HOLD GROUND, BUCKING HISTORICAL TREND.

Byline: David Espo Associated Press 

WASHINGTON - Defying history, Democrats battled Republicans to a standstill - and perhaps better - Tuesday in midterm elections likely to bolster support for President Clinton on the eve of congressional impeachment proceedings.

Republicans held control of both houses of Congress, but the trend indicated a shrunken majority in the House and status quo at 55-45 in the Senate.

Resurgent Democrats also won the single biggest prize of the night when Gray Davis was elected governor of California, one of 36 statehouse contests on the ballot.

Continued Republican control of the Senate came at a steep price for two incumbents. Alfonse D'Amato of New York and Lauch Faircloth of North Carolina - both Clinton critics - were ousted from office. In Illinois, Democratic Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun lost her bid for re-election.

Democrats appeared headed for gains of a few seats in the House, contrary not only to historical trends, but also a prediction that House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., made in a conference call to GOP lawmakers hours before the polls closed. The rank-and-file will meet later this month in the Capitol, and Gingrich and other party leaders could come under challenge.

``We didn't just do well. We did well against history and against dollars,'' crowed Roy Romer, co-chairman of the Democratic Party.

3 straight terms

A GOP majority would mark the first time in 70 years they had held the House three straight terms. But any Democratic inroads would contradict a post-World War II trend of an average of 27 losses in mid-term losses for the party of a sitting president. Not since 1934, when Franklin Roosevelt was president, has the party in the White House won seats at midterm.

Davis aside, Democrats celebrated other statehouse victories, ousting a pair of Southern governors and electing a governor in Iowa for the first time since 1966.

In a dynastic triumph with implications for the 2000 presidential race, GOP Gov. George W. Bush won a Texas-size re-election. His brother Jeb added the Florida statehouse to the Republican column. And Republicans held big-state governorships in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and New York, and took Nevada away from the Democrats.

Democrats countered in South Carolina, where Jim Hodges toppled first-term Gov. David Beasley, ironically the chairman of the Republican Governors' Association. Alabama Republican Gov. Fob James was defeated as well.

Democrats also kept the Georgia governorship in their hands, when Roy Barnes won his race to succeed Zell Miller.

Reform candidate

The most intriguing race of the night was in Minnesota, where former pro wrestler Jesse ``The Body'' Ventura, running as a Reform Party candidate, won a shocking victory over his two major-party rivals in the race for governor.

In one of the nation's most closely watched Senate races, Republican Rep. Jim Bunning edged out Democratic Rep. Scotty Baesler in a long count in Kentucky.

Democratic Sen. Harry Reid led for a new term in Nevada in a close race with Rep. John Ensign.

With the polls still open in the West, the leaders of both parties sought to claim success in the final midterm election of the Clinton presidency.

Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said that when all the seats were decided, Republicans would pad their majorities in both the House and Senate. Voters decided otherwise, and Senate Whip Don Nickles, R-Okla., acknowledged tersely, ``It's not as good as some hoped.''

Steve Grossman, co-chairman of the Democratic Party, said a late-campaign series of GOP commercials reminding voters of Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky was ``an abject failure. . . . This was not only a colossal waste of money on the part of the Republicans, but it also caused something of a backlash,'' he added.

Asked in an interview about the impact of the returns on impeachment proceedings, House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri said, ``I think this was a cry from the people to get on with their agenda and I hope the Republicans will.''

In a closely watched Senate race, McCain's partner in campaign reform, Wisconsin Democrat Russell Feingold won his race for re-election.

Two Clinton foes tasted defeat. In strongly contested Senate races, D'Amato lost his bid for a fourth term to Rep. Charles Schumer in New York. Faircloth fell to John Edwards in North Carolina.

Winning first terms were Democrat Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas and Republican Mike Crapo in Idaho, both of whom were succeeding lawmakers in their own party.

Incumbents triumph

The trend in House races was overwhelmingly favorable to incumbents in both parties. With nearly 300 of the House's 435 races settled, only a handful had been denied a new term. Only one Democrat, Rep. Jay Johnson of Wisconsin, was among them.

That left the main battle for the 34 open seats.

In California, Sen. Barbara Boxer held onto her seat.

In South Carolina, veteran Democratic Sen. Ernest Hollings - long viewed by party strategists as one of the most endangered incumbents on the ballot - triumphed in his bid for a sixth full term.

As expected two, Senate seats switched from one party to the other.

Former Gov. Evan Bayh took back an Indiana Senate seat that had been in Republican hands since his father, Birch Bayh, was defeated for re-election in 1980. Republicans countered in Ohio, where Gov. George Voinovich succeeds John Glenn, who was orbiting Earth in an election-week voyage aboard the shuttle Discovery.

Election Day interviews with voters across the country showed that 20 percent identified education as their most important concern when they cast ballots in congressional races. An additional 19 percent cited moral and ethical issues, 14 percent named the economy and 12 percent each identified taxes and Social Security.

When asked about Clinton and impeachment, six in 10 voters said they disapproved of how Congress is handling the matter, with nearly as many saying Congress should just drop the issue without proceeding to impeachment hearings. But roughly 60 percent of those questioned said the president's troubles had nothing to do with their vote for House candidates.