MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Senate win gives Republicans control

Republicans took control of Congress and edged back to power early on Wednesday morning, recording a net gain of at least one seat - all it needed to win immediate control of the Senate. The House of Representatives remained static, with few seats changing hands.

The news drowned out relatively good news for Democrats, who seized a number of governorships, including some that no analysts had considered to be in play.

In Missouri, Senator Jean Carnahan conceded to her challenger, Jim Talent, a Republican ex-congressman, early on Wednesday morning. Because Ms Carnahan had been appointed in November 2000 - to fill the seat won posthumously by her husband, Mel Carnaham - Mr Talent may immediately proceed to the US Senate, rather than waiting for the mass swearing-in of the new Congress in early January.

The results overall amounted to strong news for the White House, which had desperately hoped to regain both the upper and lower houses of Congress. But for the first time in several years, Democrats' majority of state executives could create a headache for President George W. Bush in 2004.

But Democrats won few of the seats they challenged most fiercely. Jeb Bush, Florida's Republican governor and the president's brother, easily defeated Bill McBride, a Democratic challenger. In New Hampshire, Jeanne Shaheen, the popular retiring Democratic governor, missed a chance to win a Senate seat for the Democrats, losing to John Sununu, a Republican congressman.

Democrats strode into a number of governors' mansions long held by Republicans, including Tennessee, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Illinois, while losing two close races in Maryland and Massachusetts.

Gray Davis, the largely unpopular governor of California, won a second term after a remarkably negative campaign. But Democrats also picked up seats in some unexpected places, including Wyoming, the conservative western home of Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, and Tennessee in the largely Republican south.

But in Maryland, Kathleen Townsend, the state's lieutenant governor and the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, lost the governor's race to Robert Ehrlich, a Republican congressman.

Georgia provided two big surprises, both at the expense of Democrats, whose incumbents Senator Max Cleland and Governor Roy Barnes each lost to challengers.

In the House, nearly every incumbent won re-election, thanks in large part to a lack of voter activism and a once-a-decade redrawing of Congressional districts that strengthened officeholders.

Connie Morella, an endangered liberal Republican congresswoman from suburban Maryland outside Washington, lost her seat to Chris Van Hollen, a Democratic state senator.