Democrats hold edge in final stage of US campaign

WASHINGTON: The US legislative election campaign entered its final full week on Sunday with opposition Democrats holding an edge in opinion polls over President George W. Bush's Republicans.

"Every week things get better and better," a buoyant Senator Charles Schumer told Fox News Sunday after national polls showed wide support for his Democrats.

But top Republican legislator John Boehner predicted his party would hold on to its majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives despite surveys that showed the Democrats gaining momentum in pivotal contests.

"All these big national polls that show the trends don't mean anything because what we have are 435 individual races all around the country, local candidates running on local issues," Boehner told ABC television on Sunday.

"And so what we're going to do is continue to work hard right up until election day and mobilize every vote that we can," said Boehner, the House majority leader.

Pollster John Zogby has predicted huge wins for the Democrats, but noted that with more than a week before the polls, 20 percent of voters were still undecided.

"If the election were held today, the Democrats would pick up 25 to 30 seats in the House of Representatives and at least four seats in the US Senate," said pollster John Zogby.

Democrats need a net gain of 15 seats to regain control of the House they lost to Republicans in 1994, and six seats to retake the Senate, out of a total of 435 House seats up for grabs and 33 in the Senate.

Also being contested in the election are 36 state governorships and scores of local elective offices.

Schumer said the vote was going to turn on the troubled presidency of George W. Bush.    "This election more and more is becoming a referendum on George Bush, his failed policies both overseas and here at home, and the rubberstamp Congress," he said.

Newsweek magazine's poll released Saturday indicated that campaign themes once considered strong points for Republicans, such as national security, may be failing them.

By a margin of 45 percent to 33 percent, Americans now trust Democrats rather than Republicans to handle the bloody conflict in Iraq, the Newsweek poll found.

With a majority of Americans saying the war was a mistake, Democratic candidates are hammering Bush over his handling of Iraq.

"We need stability in Iraq. And the troops deserve to hear a realistic, achievable plan. The troops and their families deserve this, and we're not getting it," said Representative John Murtha, a Democrat from Pennsylvania who has spearheaded calls to reduce the number of US soldiers deployed in Iraq.

"We keep getting rhetoric and they keep demonizing the people that have a difference in policy with them. That's not going to solve the problem. You can't win it rhetorically," the retired, Vietnam-era Marine colonel told CBS's "Face the Nation."

Prominent conservative ideologue and former legislator Dick Armey bitterly wrote in The Washington Post Sunday that Republicans "stand on the precipice of an electoral rout" because they "became enamored with power and position, and began putting politics over policy."

Stuart Rothenberg, head of an independent political research firm, predicted "a Democratic wave" on November 7 based on the poll numbers. Most political analysts said the Democrats had a good chance of taking the House but said securing the Senate appeared more difficult.