(Image source: PBS NewsHour)
BY CHRISTINA HARTMAN
ABC: “Nancy Pelosi is out. John Boehner is in, as the Democrats lose control of the House in tonight's historic election.”
Republicans are celebrating a return to power in the House of Representatives. The GOP needed to turn 39 seats going into the elections -- but are projected to gain as many as 60.
CNN: “CNN now projects that Morgan Griffith will beat the incumbent, Democrat Rick Boucher.”
WOFL: “Republicans winning big. Daniel Webster is the new Republican for District 8, beating easily Alan Grayson the Democrat...”
KXAS: “Democratic representative Chet Edwards has been ousted tonight after 20 years in Congress.”
Major news networks like CNN and NBC News were calling the House for the GOP as early as 9:00pm Eastern election night.
NBC talked to Republican Governor of Mississippi Haley Barbour -- who says a GOP House will force President Obama to compromise on jobs, federal spending and taxes.
BARBOUR: “You overlaid that with Obamacare, a government run health care system that mostly affected these elections because the American people say why did y'all spend all that time on health care when you should have been working on economic growth and job creation? ... One thing we do have to understand, though, we can't just say you got to do everything our way. The president has still got the megaphone. He's still going to set the agenda. We control one House of Congress...”
And on Fox Business -- a gloating former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich calls the election a referendum on Mr. Obama -- and says come tomorrow -- the president will have to do some serious soul-searching.
GINGRICH: "The races at every level from state legislature to governor to the Senate to the U.S. House all migrating in the same direction. And the net effect by tomorrow morning will be a dramatically weaker Democratic Party and a severely repudiated president. ... I think that President Obama has to decide what is his story? Will he work with the people elected by the American people or is he going to pick fights with them?”
But an analyst on Chicago’s WFLD says all politics is local -- and GOP wins are neither a referendum on the president nor his party. He says it all comes down to the individual candidates.
ANDY SHAW: “If this was ever a year for people to really revolt and say the Democrats have screwed everything up, they would have thrown out enough Democrats to make Tom Cross the speaker, but it didn't happen. ... In these House races, you can't just throw people out because after national wave, and a lot of people survive because they're well known by the voters. Regardless of party, the well-known and respected makes a big difference.”
As for reaction from the White House -- Mr. Obama plans to make a statement Wednesday afternoon. Still - PBS NewsHour’s Kwame Holman says the prospect of a Republican House is something the president had long prepared for.
“The feeling here at the White House has been from officials that long ago, months ago, they recognized that they could lose seats. They talked in this building about seats that were marginal for Democrats in the first place. Talked about seats perhaps thinking about those long-time Democrats who have been in difficult seats and in difficult races before who might get taken out on this night.”
A tearful John Boehner, the next Speaker of the House, called the midterm election results a “repudiation” of Washington and “big government.” President Obama called him shortly after the win to congratulate him on his victory.
Get more multi-source political news from Newsy.com.
