Democrats seek historic gains, challenges

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats are headed toward historic gains in Tuesday's congressional elections, polls show, as well as herculean challenges afterward on matters from war to Wall Street.

Due largely to the unpopularity of President George W. Bush and the worst U.S. economic crisis since The Great Depression, Democrats may expand their control of the Senate and House of Representatives to the highest levels in decades. They even have a shot at a Senate majority big enough to prevent Republicans from blocking legislation with procedural hurdles.

Democrats may need that kind of clout to quickly deliver on campaign promises they forged with their presidential nominee, Barack Obama, who according to polls appears on track to defeat Republican rival John McCain.

"Democrats will have a brief moment to celebrate, and then will have to get to work fast," said Paul Light of New York University's Center for the Study of Congress.

Said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the House Democratic campaign committee: "Expectations will be high."

"We're going to move full speed ahead, but we have to manage expectations and explain we can't get it all done overnight," Van Hollen said.

Democrats held a majority in Congress the past two years. But when they tried to advance many of the issues on their agenda, like expanding health care or withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, they were repeatedly stymied by Bush's veto pen or Senate Republican procedural roadblocks known as filibusters.

Even with expanded power in Congress and control of the White House, Democrats face unprecedented fiscal restraints that will limit what they can accomplish.

"The problems are huge, and there are a lot of things that Obama and Democrats want to do," said Andrew Taylor, a political science professor at North Carolina State University. "But there's only so much money in the pot."

Democratic campaign promises include ones to move the United States toward energy independence, stimulate the economy, reduce taxes for the middle class, roll back tax cuts for the rich and begin to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq and redeploy many of them to Afghanistan.

Complicating these efforts will be a record federal deficit, Washington's newly enacted $700 billion financial industry bailout and the growing threat of an economic recession.

Also, Democrats will need to build coalitions between their liberal, moderate and even somewhat conservative wings, particularly on taxes and any new big spending programs.

There are also differences to be resolved among Democrats on such matters as energy, with some pushing for more offshore drilling while others are cool to it.

Democrats are expected to increase federal regulation of the troubled U.S. financial services industry and enact legislation vetoed by Bush to expand stem-cell research and a federally backed children's health insurance program.

PRESSURE FOR RESULTS

"If Democrats gain large majorities in the House and the Senate and Obama wins, they will have a mandate for change," said Ethan Siegal of The Washington Exchange, a private firm that tracks Congress for institutional investors.

"If they don't produce to the satisfaction of voters, Democrats will be at risk of losing in 2010 a lot of seats that they gained in 2006 and 2008," he added.

Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress in 2006 primarily because of Bush's unpopular Iraq war and political corruption. Republicans lost six Senate seats and 30 House seats.

This year, with Republicans blamed for the ailing economy, Democrats have a plausible chance to gain another nine seats in the Senate, which would give them 60, the number needed to kill filibusters. The last time they had a filibuster-proof majority was three decades ago.

Democrats, who control the House 235-199, may gain upward of 30 seats, twice as many as anticipated just weeks ago, polls show. That could give them their biggest House majority since the mid-1980s.

Historically, if a party picks up lots of seats in a congressional election, they lose a number of them in the next election. But Democrats seem likely to buck history by handing the Republicans two big consecutive losses.

"It's so rare to have a party hit with two train wrecks in a row," Charles Cook of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

"If it were any worse," he added. "It'd be biblical."

(Editing by David Alexander and Philip Barbara)