US: The most liberal Republican in the US Senate has beaten off a conservative challenger in a Rhode Island primary, boosting his party's hopes of retaining control of the Senate in November's mid-term elections.
Lincoln Chafee, the only Republican senator to vote against authorising the war in Iraq, defeated conservative populist Steve Laffey to win his party's nomination.
Polls suggested that Mr Laffey would have lost the senate seat in liberal Rhode Island to the Democrats if he had been nominated.
The Republican leadership in Washington worked hard to boost Mr Chafee, despite his vote against the war and his opposition to president George Bush's tax cuts and to a Bill banning late-term abortions.
White House spokesman Tony Snow yesterday welcomed Mr Chafee's victory and played down differences between the senator and Mr Bush.
"Members of a party don't march in lock step. He's a loyal Republican, we're glad to have him on board," Mr Snow said.
Democrats need to gain six senate seats in November to win a majority and Rhode Island was high on the party's target list before Tuesday's primary.
Most analysts believe Democrats have a better chance of gaining the 15 seats they need for a majority in the House of Representatives.
Senator Hillary Clinton easily won the Democratic primary in New York, winning more than 83 per cent of the vote to defeat anti- war challenger Jonathan Tasini.
The fact that Mr Tasini's poorly funded campaign won almost one in five votes in New York, suggests that Ms Clinton could be vulnerable on the war issue if she runs for the presidency in 2008.
New York's attorney general Eliot Spitzer defeated his Democratic rival Tom Suozzi to face Republican John Faso in November, in the race to replace Republican governor George Pataki.
In New Hampshire, anti-war candidate Carol Shea-Porter won the Democratic primary race to take on incumbent Republican congressman Jeb Bradley, while in Arizona, conservative Randy Graf - who focused on illegal immigration - defeated moderate Republican Steve Huffman for his party's nomination for a congressional race.
Adrian Fenty, a maverick local politician, is set to become the next mayor of Washington DC after he won the Democratic nomination in a city where the party has overwhelming support.
In Minnesota, Keith Ellison is likely to become America's first Muslim congressman after he won the Democratic primary for a safe seat in the House of Representatives.
A new ABC poll showed the Democrats with an eight-point lead over Republicans nationally, but Republicans are narrowing the gap and they plan to spend five times more than Democrats between now and November.
The Republican National Committee will spend $60 million (€47million), its entire budget, on targeted races, compared with the Democratic National Committee's $12 million.
Democrats hope to make up part of the shortfall with the help of trade unions and the AFL-CIO, America's biggest union, is planning to spend $40 million on get- out-the-vote operations.