Republican gains in US elections next month, rather than spelling gridlock, could in fact yield more bipartisan cooperation with the Obama administration, a top White House official said on Sunday."I'm hoping that with more seats, the Republicans will feel a greater responsibility to work with us to solve some of these problems," David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, told CBS's "Face the Nation."Analysts expect a somewhat less ambitious legislative agenda from Obama in the second two years of his presidency, with the focus on delicate issues that demand a bipartisan approach like immigration and energy legislation.

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Obama has branded Republicans as the party of "no" for their bitter opposition to his landmark health care and Wall Street reforms, and for blocking more government spending to boost hiring from fear of adding to the record US budget deficit.But voters, worried by the economy and stubbornly high unemployment near 10%, are expected to punish his Democrats at in the November midterm congressional ballot, and could hand control of the US of Representatives to Republicans.

Republicans are expected to make gains in the Democratic-controlled Senate as well.All 435 seats in the House and 37 of the 100 seats in the US Senate will be up for grabs on November 2.Axelrod said he did not believe Democrats would lose control of the House, but he was hopeful for more cooperation with Republicans than had been the case in the past."The posture of the Republican party from the moment we got here has been basically to deprive the president of bipartisan support so they could accuse him of not being bipartisan," he said.Republicans say they opposed Obama because they believe his policies took the country in the wrong direction.In the process, they have tapped into smoldering public anger over government bailouts of Wall Street - sponsored by his Republican predecessor President George W Bush to tackle the 2008 financial crisis - energizing conservatives with an anti-big government, pro tax-cutting message."We need to actually come together and begin to cut spending, rein in the size of government and get people back to work," Eric Cantor, number two in the Republican House leadership, told "Fox News Sunday."Obama has already hinted at a quieter legislative period in the next two years of his presidency.On Monday, the president acknowledged the reforms he said he was forced to put in place to fix the problems that led up to the financial crisis now merited "a period of healing and consolidation and implementation that is less disruptive".Other Democrats say a resurgent Republican Party on Capitol Hill that trimmed the size of the Democratic majority would clearly impact the kind of legislation which could be tackled."It may well be the case that there are some issues that we would have gotten passed last time that would not be able to pass this time," Representative Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told CNN's "State Of The Union."