WASHINGTON, Nov 7: Opinion polls announced on the election day predict that the opposition Democrats will win control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives in America’s mid-term elections.

University of Virginia’s Centre for Politics predicted that Democrats will pick up six Senate and 29 House seats.

Cook Political Report, one of Washington’s most respected political forecasters, said on Tuesday that the conventional wisdom that Republicans have significantly narrowed the gap with Democrats was wrong.

The report speculated that Democrats stand to pick up 20 to 35 House seats.

Even in Virginia, a traditional bastion of Republican politics, incumbent Senator George Allen is likely to lose the race to Democrat James Webb, the UoV predicted.

The results, however, will start coming on Tuesday evening and until then most US media outlets are depending on forecasts like these.

All Monday there was considerable talk that the national picture had suddenly changed and that there was a significant tightening in the election. This was based in part on two national polls: the Pew report and the ABC/Washington Post survey.

The non-partisan Pew Research Centre found Republicans cutting the Democrat lead from an 11-point margin two weeks ago to a four-point margin now.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll gave the Democrats a six-percentage-point lead among likely voters, down from 14 points two weeks ago.

Republicans are insisting that the two surveys are correct and that they are likely to retain control of the Senate, if not both the chambers.

The Slate, one of the most respectable online news outlet, called the voters swing towards the Democrats “a tsunami,” which is expected to wash away the Republican control of the US Congress.

“We’ll find out soon enough whether Hurricane Anti-Bush is a Category 3, 4, or 5 storm, and whether it lost any force passing by last week’s temporary low,” wrote Slate’s Bruce Reed. “If Republicans survive the storm, it won’t be because they saw it coming. If they lose, it will be because they had it coming.”

Some final opinion polls, however, indicated a tightening race, saying that Republicans still have widespread support in the South and the Midwest where voters usually vote for conservative values, such as the Republican opposition to gay marriages.

Voters in small town and rural America also do not share strong anti-war feelings with large American cities, the survey said.

But even the official Voice of America radio reported that “opposition Democrats hope to win control of the House for the first time in 12 years and are challenging Republican control in the US Senate.”

“Most public opinion polls say Democrats could win the 15 additional seats they need for a majority in the House, but will have a harder time picking up six seats in the Senate with close races in the states of Tennessee, Virginia, Missouri, Montana, and Rhode Island,” the report added.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said his party was closing the gap in many of the key Congressional contests, and Republican voters had a real opportunity to surprise electoral experts.

“I believe we have seen a surge over the weekend,” he said. “We have seen some real momentum. And the reason is, I think people are focusing on the choice.”

In an interview with the American television network NBC, Mr Mehlman said voters were thinking about taxes and how he says Democrats will raise those rates if they win control of the House.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told the Bloomberg news service that his party will work to bring down federal deficit spending.

“Our job, if we win, will not be to set the new direction for the entire country immediately, because we will not have the presidency, but we will be able to mitigate the rough edges,” said Mr Dean. “I think you will see a real attempt to balance the budget.”

Almost all political pundits appearing on US television channels acknowledged that the Bush administration’s conduct of the Iraq war played a key role in convincing many Americans to vote against the Republicans.

They also noted that a Democratic Congress will make George W. Bush a lame-duck president during his last two years in office and could also impact the presidential elections.

Both parties hustled to get their supporters out in high-stakes contests across the country, Republicans conceding nothing as their vaunted get-out-the-vote machine swung into motion, Democrats appearing confident and appealing one more time for change.