tors, whose seats were thought to be guaranteed, also went down to defeat. Georgia Senator Herman Talmadge, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, lost to a typewriter salesman, a Republican named Mack Mattingly. Idaho Senator Frank Church, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was ousted by GOP Congressman Steve Symms. Washington Senator Warren Magnuson fell to GOP businessman Slade Gorton. And veteran Wiscon- sin Senator Gaylord Nelson lost to Republican Robert Kasten. In 1994, Newt Gingrich led a historic landslide upset that gave Republicans control of the US House for the first time in decades. That year, the GOP picked up 54 congressional seats. Among their opponents were some big Democratic names who were thought beyond challenge, including Speaker of the House Tom Foley (the first sitting speaker to lose reelection since the Civil War); Illinois Congress- man Dan Rostenkowski, Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, who fell to an unknown 31-year-old GOP lawyer Michael Flanagan; and three-term Tennessee Senator Jim Sasser, who was defeated by a Repub- lican physician, Bill Frist, who later became Republican majority leader. In 2006, another wave year, Demo- crats won in a landslide in President George W. Bush’s last midterm, pick- ing up 31 US House and 6 US Senate seats. Three big-name GOP seniors were defeated, including Missouri Senator Jim Talent by Democrat Claire McCaskill, Virginia Senator George Allen by Democrat Jim Webb, and Montana Senator Conrad Burns by Democrat Jon Tester. continued on page 10
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