But would it be enough? Early returns on Election Day looked grim. Republicans swept five out of six statewide constitutional offices and won two-thirds majorities in both legislative chambers. The GOP also took the governor's office for the first time in eight years and won back the Senate seat vacated by Mr. Abourezk.
Things didn't look much better for Mr. Daschle. When the counting stopped in the wee small hours of Wednesday, Nov. 8, he trailed Mr. Thorsness by 42 votes. It looked like he would be swept away by the rising GOP tide.
Then, in a weird precursor to the presidential race of 2000, a locked box of absentee ballots was discovered in Minehaha County, home to the city of Sioux Falls - a discovery that kicked off weeks of canvasses, recounts, and court challenges. Precinct by precinct, both sides identified suspect ballot boxes, brought in lawyers, and argued over individual slips of paper.
Like the electoral equivalent of Chinese water torture, Mr. Thorsness watched his lead erode one vote at a time. A week after the election, his margin was cut to 16. The season's first blizzard buried the state in snow, and still the counting dragged on. Norman Rockwell died, San Francisco Mayor George Moscone was assassinated, Mickey Mouse turned 50, and the Rev. Jim Jones led the mass suicide of nearly 1,000 followers in the jungles of Guyana.
Thanksgiving came and went. Four days later, with the initial recount complete, Tom Daschle got his first good news: Out of 129,000 votes cast, he had won by 14. The secretary of state (who happened to be the mother of his old classmate, Lars Herseth) rushed to certify him as the winner.
But the Thorsness camp wasn't satisfied, and a district-wide recount got underway. When freshman orientation started in Washington, the outcome of the race was still so uncertain that both men showed up to get their introduction to the Congress. But even as he was learning his way around the Capitol, Mr. Thorsness was learning the bitter truth: Back in South Dakota, he was losing ground rather than gaining.
In January, when the final numbers at last came in, Tom Daschle had won by 139 votes. Still just 31 years old, he had already survived the toughest political race of his career. Uncertain how to pronounce his name, his fellow lawmakers dubbed him "Landslide." It was meant to be ironic. It turned out to be prophetic.