Republicans tightened their grip on the Senate early yesterday, capturing a string of Democratic seats across the South. Democratic leader Tom Daschle struggled for political survival in South Dakota.
Illinois State Senator Barack Obama, a Democratic political star in the making, easily won 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.
PHOTO: AFP
But the Republicans did most of the celebrating by far, capturing Democratic open seats in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Louisiana -- where David Vitter became the first Republican since Reconstruction to win a term in the Senate.
"We ran as a team," said Senator George Allen of Virginia, chairman of the Republican senatorial committee. He referred to Republicans who ran for open seats across the South and West, campaigning as allies of US President George W. Bush in states where Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry had little or no campaign presence.
"It looks like we're going to have a much strengthened Republican majority," Allen predicted.
Exactly how much depended on the outcome of races still unsettled in Florida, Colorado, Alaska and South Dakota.
Shortly after midnight in the East, Republicans were assured of 52 seats, one more than they control in the current Congress.
The Republican march through the South began in Georgia -- and spread in several directions at once.
Johnny Isakson claimed Georgia for the Republicans, and Jim DeMint took South Carolina. Richard Burr soon followed suit in North Carolina. Vitter made it four for four when he captured a seat in Louisiana -- avoiding a runoff by winning more than 50 percent of the vote.
In each case, Democratic retirements induced ambitious lawmakers to give up safe House seats to risk a run for the Senate.
In Florida, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez held a narrow lead over Betty Castor, a former state education commissioner, with votes counted in more than 90 percent of the precincts.
Republicans also held fast in Oklahoma, where long-term Republican Senator Don Nickles retired. Former Representative Tom Coburn prevailed there, despite early campaign stumbles that sent the party to his rescue with a televised attack on his Democratic challenger.
In many races with no incumbents on the ballot, Democrats ran as conservatives in hopes of separating themselves from Kerry in their conservative states.
Interviews with voters leaving their polling places underscored the flaw in the strategy.
In North Carolina, Burr gained the votes of nearly nine in 10 of Bush's supporters. Vitter's level of support was nearly as high in Louisiana, as was DeMint's in South Carolina.
Daschle and former Representative 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 US$26 million -- an estimated US$50 for each registered voter.
After a particularly caustic campaign, Bunning, 73, a former major league baseball pitcher, fell behind Democrat Dan Mongiardo, a surgeon, 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 million cast.
Obama, 43, the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas, had no difficulty dispatching Alan Keyes, 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 Senator Peter Fitzgerald capped a remarkable rise. He first gained national prominence this summer when his party's presidential candidate, Senator 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 Denise Majette in a campaign to replace Senator Zell Miller -- a Democrat who crossed party lines to deliver a memorable anti-Kerry speech at the Republican National Convention.
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 Bill Clinton'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 has held the seat for six years.
In next-door South Carolina, DeMint held off a challenge from Inez 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.
Republicans who won new terms included Senators Richard Shelby of Alabama, Kit Bond of Missouri, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and George Voinovich of Ohio.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of