Jeb Bradley

Returns in New Hampshire suggest an epic disaster for the Republicans. Both of the state's two GOP congressmen-- Jeb Bradley in the 1st District and Charlie Bass in the 2nd District -- are trailing. Bass is actually being trounced, though those returns are less complete. New Hampshire last sent a Democrat to the House in 1992. More to the point, Bradley's opponent, a former social worker named Carol Shea-Porter, operated on a shoe-string budget, has virtually no name recognition, and was shunned by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee-- which essentially refused to acknowledge her candidacy. The Bradley-Shea-Porter race was not in any national observer's list of the 60 most competitive races in the country. A Shea-Porter win would probably speak to a massive national tidal wave and the belated extension of the Democratic Party's Northeast dominance to New Hampshire. -- Steve Kornacki