US: Democrats are leading in six out of seven close races for Republican-held Senate seats, according to a new poll that suggests Democrats could win control of both chambers of Congress next Tuesday.
Democrats need to gain six seats for a Senate majority and the Reuters/Zogby poll released yesterday puts the party ahead in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Montana, Virginia and Rhode Island. Most polls show the Democrats on course to win a majority in the House of Representatives, where they need to gain 15 seats.
Campaigning in Montana on behalf of embattled Republican senator Conrad Burns, President George Bush yesterday warned that a Democratic-controlled Congress would be soft on terrorism and would block the appointment of conservative judges.
"I hear them in Washington all the time saying Iraq is just a distraction from the war on terror. I don't believe it's a distraction. Our troops know it is not a distraction in the war on terror. And guess who else doesn't think it's a distraction? Osama bin Laden. He has called Iraq the third world war. He says that victory for the terrorists in Iraq will mean America's defeat and disgrace forever," Mr Bush said.
Mr Bush gleefully predicted that Republicans will retain control of Congress, just as they held the White House in 2004 when Democrats, he said, were preparing to move into the West Wing. "The movers never got the call. The same thing is going to happen on November 7th. We will win the Senate and we will win the House," he said.
For two days this week, Republicans stoked a controversy over remarks by former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry that implied that US soldiers in Iraq were there because they lacked education. Mr Kerry apologised on Wednesday after leading Democrats joined Republicans in condemning his statement, which he claimed was a "botched joke".
By yesterday, the campaign focus had switched back to Iraq, partly on account of an interview in which Mr Bush said he wanted defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld to remain in his job until the president leaves office. The president's expression of support for Mr Rumsfeld gave Democrats a chance to repeat their claim that the White House is in a state of denial over Iraq.
A New York Times poll published yesterday found that majorities of both Republicans and Democrats want a change of course in Iraq, with 70 per cent of those polled believing that Mr Bush does not have a plan to end the conflict.
Nearly 75 per cent of those questioned, including 67 per cent of Republicans and 92 per cent of Democrats, said they expected American forces to be withdrawn from Iraq more quickly under a Democratic-led Congress.
Mr Bush said yesterday that withdrawing from Iraq would embolden terrorists.
"This is a different kind of war. In this war, if we leave early, if we leave before the job is done, the enemy will follow us here."