WASHINGTON - Democrats are salivating over the possibility of turning deep divisions among Republicans into toppling the majority party from its precarious perch atop the House of Representatives.
But while Republicans are showing ideological splits over everything from whether to change the nation's campaign finance laws to how to use the budget surplus, history and statistics say they are likely to hold on to the House majority they wrested from the Democrats in 1994.
Historically, the party that controls the White House loses seats in off-year elections. That fact leads Republicans to claim they will gain seats in the fall, not lose them, to bolster their 227-205 House margin. (Two seats are vacant, and there is one independent). The Republican hold on the Senate, now 55-45, is not thought to be in question. Still, this year's congressional elections may prove the exception, with a scandal-plagued, yet immensely popular Democratic president in the White House and an agenda-sparse, yet incumbent Republican leadership in the House.
04-20-98
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