Democrat Landrieu retains seat in Louisiana Senate after runoff

NEW ORLEANS -- President Bush's midterm election magic failed in Louisiana as Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu defeated a strong challenge from Republican Suzanne Haik Terrell in an unusual December runoff.

National Democratic Party leaders saw Landrieu's close victory as salve for their wounded pride after November elections that boosted Bush's numbers in Congress and gave the GOP control of the Senate with a slim majority of 51 seats.

Senate Republicans will now command committees and decide which bills the chamber debates, putting Bush's proposals on the agenda and Democrats in a defensive role.

Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., soon to lose his job as Senate majority leader, said Landrieu's victory "proves the Democrats are alive and well" and noted that Louisiana voters also chose Democrat Rodney Alexander over Republican Lee Fletcher for the open congressional seat in the 5th District.

"Her victory puts a happy ending on a tough year for Democrats," Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said on "Fox News Sunday."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president "congratulates Senator Landrieu and looks forward to Congress returning, and working in a bipartisan way with Republicans and Democrats, including Senator Landrieu, to get things done."

Terrell stayed in seclusion Sunday.

Landrieu, 46, agreed at a news conference Sunday that the campaign was a battle between her and Bush.

"If there is one state that can stand up against destructive, poison partisanship, it's Louisiana," she said.

Voter turnout key

Complete but unofficial returns had Landrieu with 643,359 votes, or 52 percent, to 603,293 for Terrell, the state's elections commissioner said. Turnout was 43 percent, about two points below the primary figures.

Turnout was a key to Landrieu's victory. Although Republicans launched their "72-hour" plan of volunteers going on the phone and in the street to get the voters to the polls, the Democrats were more successful, particularly among blacks.

Terrell got some momentum going in the final week as Bush visited. However, said Ed Renwick of the Loyola Institute of Politics, "That momentum was temporary, transient."

Landrieu, as expected, took the urban areas with heavy black voter concentrations and Terrell won in most of the bedroom communities built by white flight from the cities.

In all, Landrieu carried 35 of the 64 parishes.

Landrieu was on the defensive from Republican mudslinging ads throughout Louisiana's unique open primary campaign in which candidates of both parties run. The negative campaigning held her to 46 percent of the vote on Nov. 5; Terrell came in second in a field of nine candidates to win the other runoff spot.

During the runoff campaign, both sides got into negative television ads that dominated prime time.

"I think a large number of voters were so turned off by the ads, said, 'a plague on both houses,' and stayed home," Renwick said.

Both candidates are centrists and not far apart on issues such as Social Security, health care and prescription drugs.

However, national Republicans resorted to TV ads labeling Landrieu as the most liberal senator in state history, claiming she lived in a Washington mansion and had lost touch with the people back home. They also accused her of voting 120 times to raise taxes, although Landrieu was one of the Democrats who bolted and voted for Bush's tax package.