World News 06-11-2002 Republicans Seize Senate who: The Republican Party what: Take control of Senate in mid-term elections where: Washington DC when: Last night snippet: "Republicans have won control of the US Senate and retained their majority in the House of Representatives," reports the BBC this morning, "handing President George W Bush`s agenda a major boost in the next Congress." The victory, too late for most of today`s papers, "drowned out relatively good news for Democrats, who seized a number of governerships, including some that no analysts had considered to be in play," reports The Financial Times. The Republicans claimed their all-important 50th seat in Missouri, where Senator Jean Carnahan conceded to her challenger, former congressman Jim Talent. "The results bucked a long-term tradition by which the party that controls the White House tends to lose seats in mid-term elections," says The Guardian. "This election looks to be the best performance by an incumbent party since 1934. The president`s popularity appears to have lifted Republican candidates - a `coattails effect`." The president`s brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, held off a challenge from Democratic lawyer Bill McBride to win his second term. The state has been besieged by polling problems in the past, most notably in the last presidential election when "hanging chads" left the White House in limbo for five weeks. But this time round, the election was run like a "military operation", says The Independent`s David Usborne in Miami, and polling was being scrutinised by independent observers "not just from the United States, but from countries as unlikely as Armenia and Bosnia". [... more]

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