WASHINGTON (AP) — Confident Republicans steered toward a hefty House majority in Tuesday's elections, capitalizing on dissatisfaction with President Barack Obama and the nation's pervasive malaise to push their numbers toward the highest levels in 65 years.
The GOP currently controls 234 seats and is a lock to re-establish its majority for the final two years of Obama's presidency. Aggressive in the midterms, Republicans were certain to win the seats of retiring moderate Democrats in North Carolina and New York while trying to make inroads in Democratic strongholds of Illinois, Minnesota and California.
The GOP also targeted five-term Democratic Rep. John Barrow in rural Georgia, one of the last of the white Southern Democrats.
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