Moderate GOP Senator Beats Conservative Challenger in R.I.

PROVIDENCE, R.I., Sept. 12 -- Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee, a moderate Republican who has frequently clashed with the Bush administration but is key to his party's plan to hold control of the Senate, beat back a strong conservative challenger Tuesday night in the GOP primary in Rhode Island.

The victory came amid a heavy turnout by primary standards, after the same Republican establishment that Chafee has so often defied rallied to his side with money and logistical support for a vigorous get-out-the-vote effort. Although there is scant personal affection for Chafee at the White House, officials there and at the Republican National Committee calculated that he was more likely than Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey to keep a GOP seat in a Democratic-leaning state this November.

Chafee's win represented a break for a national Republican leadership that has had few this year. Operatives at the RNC and National Republican Senatorial Committee -- treating the primary as a trial run for their turnout efforts in November -- invested in computer "micro-targeting" techniques to herd party activists and sizable numbers of independents to the polls.

Laffey, a blustery populist who sought to play off what many regard as Chafee's diffident style, had sought to become the second challenger to topple a senator in a primary this year, after Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman's loss to Ned Lamont in Connecticut's Democratic primary last month. In the end, however, a race that for weeks had been widely viewed as neck-and-neck fell decisively in line for Chafee, who won 54 percent of the vote to Laffey's 46 percent, with all precincts counted.

Chafee's hurdles are far from over. Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, a former state attorney general who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2002, also secured his party's nomination Tuesday night over negligible opposition. Whitehouse, who was not a top choice of Democratic Party recruiters, has been running even with Chafee in recent polls.

Although Chafee escaped the threat from Laffey, Democrats think he compromised his general-election chances by waging a negative campaign marked by pointed attack ads and by accepting such high-profile Republican Party help. The senator expressed regret last week that the tone of the campaign had turned nasty. But, he pointed out, "Negative ads do work."

But they also clash with his expressed loathing of gloves-off partisanship.

"This is my 10th run for office . . . and I've never had one like this," said Chafee, the son of the late senator John H. Chafee and a former Warwick mayor and City Council member. He said the vote was an endorsement of the "spirit of compromise" that he has tried to uphold. Then he reminded supporters that a whole new battle is beginning. "It will take everything we've got," Chafee said.

"When Lincoln Chafee -- an incumbent Republican senator -- can barely win his own primary, you know he'll have trouble in the general election," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), chairman of the Senate Democrats' campaign committee.

National GOP officials were concerned that if Chafee lost, Democrats would almost certainly win his seat in November, one of six they must pick up to reclaim control of the Senate. National Republican officials who are backing Chafee announced last week that they would pull their resources out of Rhode Island should Laffey prevail, effectively conceding the election to Democrats.

Rhode Island was one of nine states that held primaries Tuesday, the last big day of party battles before the November elections.

In New Hampshire, Democrats who oppose the Iraq war showed their strength again, just as they had in the Lieberman-Lamont election. In the 1st Congressional District, Carol Shea-Porter stressed antiwar themes in her upset victory over party-backed Jim Craig in the contest to take on Rep. Jeb Bradley (R).