Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall watched election results from his home in West Virginia. Rough night for House Dems

House Republicans, exploiting deep unhappiness with the president and a favorable political playing field, routed their Democrats in the midterm election, strengthening their grip on the chamber and winning an historic majority.

As Tuesday night turned into Wednesday morning, GOP gains surpassed double digits, and, with a number of races yet to be called, it was possible that their numbers would climb higher. Going into the election, Republicans had a 17-seat hold on the speaker’s gavel.


With 11 races still undecided, Republican pickups stood at 13 — giving them 247 of the House’s 435 seats, the GOP’s largest delegation since 1931, when Herbert Hoover was president. Democrats, who lost power in the 2010 midterms and have been fighting to gain it back ever since, were thrust deep into the minority and potentially expelled from control of the House for years to come.

The Democratic casualties stretched across the map, from the conservative south to the more liberal northeast. Democrats suffered defeats in West Virginia, where longtime Rep. Nick Rahall fell; in Georgia, where Rep. John Barrow, the only white Democrat representing a district in the Deep South, lost his seat.

( WATCH: Election Day 2014 videos)

Democrats lost ground in areas that are typically friendly to them, with the defeats spreading to liberal districts, in suburban Chicago, where Democratic Rep. Brad Schneider lost, in upstate New York, where Rep. Dan Maffei fell, and in the Las Vegas area, where freshman Rep. Steven Horsford was ousted.

Democrats also suffered a crushing loss in New York City, where scandal-plagued GOP Rep. Michael Grimm blew out his underwhelming Democratic opponent.

Democratic strategists were also closely monitoring races involving lawmakers long thought to be safe but who found themselves in close vote counts. In one of the night’s biggest surprises, California Rep. Jim Costa was narrowly trailing an obscure Republican opponent, farmer Johnny Tacherra. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Tacherra, who had been badly outraised and outspent, led Costa by more than 700 votes. The Associated Press had yet to call the race.

“I won’t sugarcoat it,” said New York Rep. Steve Israel, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman. “We always knew tonight would be a challenging night, and it was for Democrats at every level.”

( PHOTOS: Pols cast their ballots on Election Day 2014)

One of the few bright spots for Democrats came in Florida, where Gwen Graham, a Leon County schools official and the daughter of former Sen. Bob Graham, defeated GOP Rep. Steve Southerland.

The election capped a two-yearlong fight for the chamber, the outcome of which had never been seriously in doubt. This spring, Republicans won a special election for a swing Florida congressional seat, a victory that foretold a difficult year ahead for Democrats. In that contest, Republicans put Democrats on defense over the fumbled rollout of the Affordable Care Act, a theme that would be reprised in many of the GOP’s campaign ads later in the year.

Democrats were hoping to mitigate potentially debilitating losses, with some party strategists worried that they could be locked out of the House majority until the next round of redistricting in the 2020s.

The election threatened to increase the polarization in a chamber that has been stifled by gridlock. Republicans succeeded in targeting moderate Democrats like Barrow and Rahall.

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The midterm was also a test to see whether House Republicans, nearly 90 percent of whom are white men, could add diversity to their ranks. In Utah, Mia Love become the first black woman in the House GOP Conference. In Texas, Will Hurd, a black former CIA officer, defeated a Democratic incumbent. In Florida, Carlos Curbelo, who is Hispanic, prevailed.

The fates of several scandal-plagued pols also hung in the balance. Among them was Grimm, who despite being under a 20-count federal indictment, held off his Democratic opponent. In Louisiana, GOP Rep. Vance McAllister — the “kissing congressman” who earlier this year was caught in an extramarital make-out session with a female staffer — was less successful, falling short in his bid to reclaim his seat.

Lauren French contributed to this report.