1.   But the momentum has shifted so that most developments, such as congressional retirements and the ripple-down effects of party switches, favor the Republicans.

2.   Election years, though, thrive on raw politics, and Forbes faces a nasty race, full of hurdles, all of them rooted in his party switch.

3.   In Maine, Democrats had temporarily lost control of the House earlier this year because of party switches.

4.   Jeffords, I-Vt., said his party switch has forced legislators to work together on an economic stimulus package, energy policy and the federal budget.

5.   Ms. McCaughey Ross painted her party switch as one of idealism, not an act of convenience after a feud with the governor.

6.   Occasionally something pulls them together, like the Republican effort to add a new Ways and Means seat for Laughlin as a reward for his party switch.

7.   Republicans have charged that money, not principle, prompted the party switch by Buchanan.

8.   Some in Utah believe Romney would be more successful as a Democratic candidate there, though he may have trouble explaining the party switch.

9.   Still, Jeffords said, he has no regrets for making a party switch that upset personal relationships and wrested control of the US Senate from the Republicans.

10.   That made his party switch even more bitterly received by liberal Democrats who called him an opportunist or worse.