In the final weekend of one of the closest congressional campaigns in years, Democratic candidates returned Sunday to the issues that they had once hoped would sweep them to victory, warning of a deteriorating economy and a Republican threat to Social Security.
Republicans, led by President Bush, urged voters to elect a Republican Congress that would enact initiatives from a domestic security bill to tax cuts.
From a street walk in the suburbs of Las Vegas to a fly-around in South Dakota, from small-town coffee shops to a huge presidential rally at a Minnesota hockey arena, Democrats and Republicans struggled to strike the right closing themes in a campaign that has been notable for its absence of any sharp divisions.
In this campaign season’s final weekend, Democrats sounded themes they had been talking about since last summer: An unsteady economy, prescription drug coverage for the elderly and the future of Social Security.
“You know who the real important person is to me?” said Sen. Jean Carnahan, D-Mo., who is struggling to hold her Senate seat in one of the closest election fights of the season. “The man who told me he’s cutting his pills in half every day. He needs prescription drug benefits in Medicare. That will be one of the very first things when I return to the Senate.”
In Arkansas, Mark Pryor, a Democratic challenger fighting to unseat Sen. Tim Hutchinson, a Republican, struck a similar theme Sunday night in Pine Bluffs: “Arkansans wants a senator in Washington who will fight for them whether it is for prescription drugs, education, highways or the economy,” Pryor said to a burst of applause.
For Republicans — personified in three states Sunday by none other than Bush, in the midst of an exhaustive campaign swing — it was a domestic security bill, a push for making tax cuts permanent, and the frustration Bush voiced at Democrats in the Senate who have blocked his judicial nominees.
“I need someone to help me fulfill one of my most awesome responsibilities, which is to pick good judges for our federal benches,” Bush said in Springfield, Ill., as he campaigned on behalf of candidates for governor, the Senate and the House. “The current Senate has done a lousy job on the judges. We’ve got a vacancy crisis in America, which means Americans aren’t getting justice.”
This last Sunday of campaigning came on the eve of an election in which voters will chose 435 voting members of the House, 34 members of the Senate and 36 governors. Before the death of Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., the Democrats held a one-seat edge in the Senate; Republicans hold a six-seat edge in the House. There are 21 Democratic governors and 27 Republicans; the other two are independents.
Leaders in both parties said Sunday that it seemed likely that Democrats would hold on to, or slightly expand, their edge in the Senate, while Republicans would at least hold on to control of the House.
But Democrats seemed poised to make significant gains among governorships, notably in states that could prove pivotal in the 2004 presidential campaign, including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Illinois.