WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrats won a cliffhanger race in Montana on Wednesday that took them to the brink of control of the Senate, after Americans sick of scandal and weary of war brought down the Republican House majority.

"It was a thumpin,'" President Bush told reporters at a White House news conference.

Reflecting the redrawn Washington landscape, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld agreed to step down, satisfying Democratic demands.

With Democrats now assured of 50 Senate seats, the battle for outright control came down to Virginia, where the party's candidate, Jim Webb, held a small lead.

For Republicans, it was an election that started out grim and got only grimmer with the new day. First, voters brought down the Republican House majority after 12 years in power, and gave Democrats a majority of governorships for the first time in just as long.

Then Senate control began slipping away, the narrow GOP majority ground down to nothing, protected only by Vice President Dick Cheney's tie-breaking vote if the contest ended at 50-50.

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