Democrats swung at the pitch offered up when longtime Republican Sen. Pete Domenici stepped aside and hit a grand slam Tuesday night, winning all four open congressional seats his retirement created.

Rep. Tom Udall easily moved into Domenici’s Senate seat, defeating Rep. Steve Pearce of Hobbs. Similarly, Ben Ray Lujan had little problem sweeping a three-way race to replace Udall in the 3rd Congressional District.

The surprises of the night were Martin Heinrich blasting past popular Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White in CD1 and Harry Teague topping Ed Tinsley in southern New Mexico’s CD2. Both Democrats had slim leads in the polls leading up to Election Day, but substantial numbers of undecided voters apparently swung their way.

With 26 of 33 counties reporting all or a portion of their votes, Udall topped Pearce with 61 percent. Even Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama had a lower percentage, leading John McCain by a margin of 57 percent to 42 percent.

Lujan had a similar wide lead over Republican Dan East of Rio Rancho and Independent Carol Miller of Santa Fe in the race for the 3rd Congressional District, representing northern New Mexico. Lujan, a one-term Public Regulation Commission member making his first bid for national office, was leading  with 59 percent. East had 29 percent, while Miller had 12 percent.

Heinrich has been ahead in polls all summer, but by closer margins than he earned Tuesday night. With about a third of the vote counted in CD1, he led White with 57 percent of the vote. White conceded around 10 p.m., telling Albuquerque TV reporters that the race turned out tougher than he  thought it would.

“They said it was going to be a headwind” for Republican candidates this year, White said. “It was more like a tornado.”

Heinrich is the first Democrat to win CD1 since the seat was formed in 1968.

And Teague is the first Democrat to win CD2 since 1981. The self-made millionaire took on Capitan restaurateur Ed Tinsley and was leading 53 percent to 47 percent, according to preliminary figures from the Secretary of State’s Office.

One party holding all five of the state’s congressional seats is an electoral feat never seen in New Mexico politics. Both parties have had stretches when they held all the seats, but that was when there were either one or two House districts, not three.