Primaries Could Determine Who Takes Congress

Sept. 13, 2006— -- Democrats hoped Tuesday's primaries would bring results that would give the party momentum on the road to recapturing the House and Senate.

Those hopes were not quite realized, and Republicans appear to have made some gains in the last few weeks in what seemed a much more hostile political terrain for incumbents and the GOP just a few weeks ago.

Tuesday's primaries in nine states and the District of Columbia set the stage for November's highly watched midterm elections and the battle for control of Congress.

The most consequential result was perhaps in Rhode Island, where there is a highly contested race in which the fate of the Senate may rest.

Incumbent Sen. Lincoln Chafee, a moderate Republican, fended off a tough challenge from a more conservative Republican, Cranston, R.I., Mayor Steve Laffey.

A few weeks ago, Chafee seemed to be in real trouble, but the White House and the National Republican Party -- believing Laffey was far too conservative to beat Democratic Senate candidate Sheldon Whitehouse in November -- poured money into negative ads against Laffey.

They pulled together an impressive Get-Out-the-Vote effort that helped Chafee win, despite his opposition to President Bush's tax cuts, war in Iraq and 2004 re-election.

Chafee wrote in the name of former President George H.W. Bush on his 2004 ballot.

"Sometimes over the last few weeks, I'd get a little down and my son Caleb would come up to me and say, 'Dad, are you pumped?'" Chafee said to a crowd of supporters Tuesday night. "Are we pumped? Are we pumped? On to victory!"

Chafee's primary win means it will be far tougher for Democrats to regain control of the Senate.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow congratulated Chafee in an interview this morning on "Good Morning America."

"Members of a party don't march in lock step," Snow said in response to Chafee's departure from Bush on some issues. "He's a loyal Republican. We're glad to have him onboard."

To the surprise of no one, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton barely paused in her much-speculated beeline for the White House.

She faced a challenge from an anti-war liberal in her New York Senate primary, and won in a landslide.

Some political observers noted that the fact that her underfunded, relatively unknown challenger secured the votes in one in five New York Democrats might mean that Clinton had at least a minor vulnerability on the war that her possible presidential opponents will try to exploit in the 2008 Democratic primaries.