USA: American network NBC announces that the House of Representatives has been taken by the Democrats in the U.S. mid-term elections

With results from the U.S. mid-term elections trickling in after voting closed Tuesday evening (November 7), American television networks announced that the Democrats had swept Republicans out of power in the U.S. House of Representatives, one of the chambers that forms the U.S. Congress. Brian Williams, the anchor for NBC's Nightly News program, who was anchoring an election special announced at about 03:54 GMT Wednesday (November 8) that NBC was confirming its projections that the Democrats would be controlling the House of Representatives -- 231 to 204. After giving a brief update on the latest news that resulted in the Democrats taking lead in the House, WIlliams handed over to anchor Tim Russert to get an in-depth perspective on the key races that decided the Democratic victory. Russert said that the Democrats "now had the gavil" and that they would bring people before them to answer questions and that they would control legislative agenda. He also said that American President George Bush would have to decide whether he would govern "with the Democrats", or whether he would try and "continue to play to his base", while the Democrats would have to decide whether they would "cooperate with the President". Williams emphasized that the race for the control of the Senate, the second chamber that makes U.S. Congress, was still close at the time that he was speaking and could not be announced definitively as yet. Williams then asked NBC News Chief White House correspondent David Gregory to give an idea of the mood in the White House. Gregory said that the Republicans had started reflecting on what a Democrat controlled House of Representatives would mean for the Congress and how with this news, the mind shift on key issues facing the country such as immigration and the budget had already begun. This election has been widely seen as a referendum on Bush policies and the war in Iraq. Democrats are proclaimed to have reached victory in the House on wave of public discontent with Iraq war, corruption and President Bush's leadership. The win is likely to slam brakes on Bush's legislative agenda in his final two years.

ITN Source | November 8, 2006

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