Republicans want to win back lost seats

WASHINGTON, June 18 (UPI) -- The National Republican Congressional Committee hopes to unseat some of the freshman Democrats that swept the Republicans out of the majority last year.

"In order to win back the majority, we don't have to conquer new territory. We just need to reclaim old territory," Ken Spain, press secretary for the NRCC, told the Washington Times.

The party has had good luck recruiting Republican candidates for Congress, Spain said.

"A lot of Republican candidates are seeing an opportunity for higher office for the first time in a while. They've been waiting in the wings with a lot of pent-up ambitions, hoping that a Republican incumbent was going to retire, and now see that it's held by a Democrat," Spain told the Times.

"These candidates are smart and realize that 2006 was a wave election and it's highly unlikely that Democrats will get back-to-back cycles like that in a row," he said.