Yahoo's take:
Republicans Retain Control of Senate
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WASHINGTON - Republicans renewed their grip on the Senate Tuesday night and reached out for more, capturing Democratic seats across the south. Democratic leader Tom Daschle faced a strong challenge in South Dakota.
Republican victories for Democratic-held seats in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia assured the GOP of at least 50 seats in the Senate that convenes on Jan. 3.
Under complicated rules in effect, that assured Republicans of control regardless of the outcome of the presidential election.
A victory by President Bush (news - web sites) would give Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) the ability to break ties. A victory by Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) would force him to resign his seat in Congress, and give the GOP a 50-49 advantage until his successor was elected in late spring or summer.
Democratic State Sen. Barack Obama, a political star in the making, easily captured a seat formerly in Republican hands in Illinois, and will be the only black among 100 senators when the new Congress convenes in January. "I am fired up," he told cheering supporters in Illinois.
Elsewhere, Republicans were more likely to be celebrating.
Rep. Johnny Isakson (news, bio, voting record) claimed Georgia for the Republicans, and Rep. Jim DeMint (news, bio, voting record) took South Carolina. Rep. Richard Burr (news, bio, voting record) soon followed suit in North Carolina. In each case, Democratic retirements induced abmitious young members of Congress to give up safe House seats to risk a run for the Senate.
Ticket-splitting had been the key to the Democrats' slim chances all along. Of the nine most competitive races on the ballot, all of them in the South and West, Kerry made virtually no effort to contest Bush and many Democratic challengers ran as conservatives.
But in Oklahoma, a state where Democrats long touted their chances, former Rep. Tom Coburn captured the votes of three-fourths of the president's supporters. That was enough to trounce Rep. Brad Carson (news, bio, voting record) and keep the seat in GOP hands.
Republicans hold 51 seats in the current Senate. Democrats have 48, along with the support of independent Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont. A combination of factors — the Constitution, the calendar and the presidential race among them — meant that Republicans need 50 seats to hold control, and Democrats must gain 51 to take it away.
Most veteran lawmakers of both parties coasted to new terms after campaigns against little-known and poorly funded opponents.
But there were exceptions.
Daschle and former Rep. John Thune were in an impossibly close race with votes counted in one-third of their sparsely populated state — separated by fewer than 1,000 votes. Theirs was a campaign on which the two men spent $26 million — an estimated $50 for easch registered voter.
After a particularly caustic campaign, incumbent Republican Sen. Jim Bunning (news, bio, voting record), 73, fell behind Democrat Dan Mongiardo early in the evening in Kentucky before moving ahead. With votes counted in all but three of the state's 3,482 precincts, he led 50.5 to 49.5 — a margin of fewer than 20,000 votes out of 1.7 milliion cast.
Obama, 43, had no difficulty dispatching Alan Keyes (news - web sites), a black conservative whose outspoken views against abortion and homosexuality earned the disdain from some members of his own party.
Even so, the Democratic state legislator's victory in a race to replace Republican Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (news, bio, voting record) capped a remarkable rise. He first gained national prominence this summer when his party's presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, tapped him to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.
Isakson, who replaced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in Congress in 1999, coasted to victory in Georgia. He triumphed over Rep. Denise Majette (news, bio, voting record) in a campaign to replace Sen. Zell Miller (news, bio, voting record) — a Democrat who crossed party lines to deliver a memorably anti-Kerry speech at the Republican National Convention.
Rep. Richard Burr triumphed over Erskine Bowles in North Carolina, who was making his second try for the Senate in two years after a turn as President Clinton (news - web sites)'s chief of staff. Burr made much of his rival's resume — in a state that Bush carried handily even though democratic running mate John Edwards (news - web sites) has held the seat for six years.
In next-door South Carolina, DeMint held off a challenge from Inex Tenenbaum, the state Education Superintendent. She stumbled early, then found her campaign legs with an attack on DeMint's support for a national sales tax. He battled back, though, and won handily in a state that Bush was carrying, as well.
That left two southern states where Democrats retired.
Florida, with votes tallied in more than 90 percent of the precincts, former HUD Secretary Mel Martinez, who is Cuban-born, was in a tight race with Betty Castor, a former state senator.
In Louisiana, Republican Rep. David Vitter (news, bio, voting record) led several Democratic rivals comfortably with more than 90 percent of the precincts counted, and flirted with an outright majority that would allow him to avoid a Dec. 4 runoff.
With few exceptions, incumbents won new terms with ease over little-known and under-funded challengers.
Republicans who won new terms included Sens. Richard Shelby of Alabama, Kit Bond of Missouri, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, George Voinovich of Ohio, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Robert Bennett of Utah, Charles Grassley of Iowa, Mike Crapo of Idaho and John McCain of Arizona.
McCain's victory meant he was in line to chair the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites) if Republicans held the Senate.
Among Democratic incumbents, Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, Evan Bayh of Indiana, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, Charles Schumer of New York, Harry Reid of Nevada and Patty Murray of Washington state won new terms.
In all, there were 34 seats on the ballot, 19 held by Democrats and 15 by Republicans.
Multimillion dollar campaigns were commonplace in the most contested races, and the Daschle-Thune race set the pace.
Through mid-October, Daschle had spent about $16 million in his quest for a fourth term in a sparsely settled state. Thune's expenditures reached $10 million.
When it came to personal attacks, the Kentucky race was hard to match. Democrats ran television commercials questioning Bunning's mental fitness for office. His allies, in turn, openly speculated about Mongiardo's sexual orientation.
