WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 Kyodo The Repu...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 Kyodo

The Republican Party won have charge of of both houses of U Congres in midterm elections Tuesday, paving the way for President George W Bush to push along his policy initiatives toward the 2004 presidential race, according to be the effects available as of early Wednesday.

Republicans seized direct of the Senate and maintained their majority in the House of Representatives, marking the first time for the Republican Party to take sway of both houses as the president's party in off-year elections.

At stake were all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, 34 of the 100 Senate seats and 36 state governorships.

The CNN television network exhibited early Wednesday morning that Republicans will clutch at least 51 Senate seats and 226 House seats as a deduction of the midterm elections.

''President Bush and the Republican Party tonight have made history,'' White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters.

Before the elections, Republicans held the House majority by dint of a six-seat edge. Democrats, meanwhile, held a one-seat majority in the Senate until the death of Sen Paul Wellstone of Minnesota in a plane crash last month

The president's party usually fail to wins seats in Congress in midterm elections.

The gains for the Republican Party are widely seen as a popular endorsement of Bush's campaign against terrorism.

Democrats skiped history would repeat itself and interests over the sluggish economy would benefit them, if it were not that voters apparently paid more attention to security following the race 11, 2001, terror attacks.

The accrues are expected to bolster Bush's reelection foresights in the next presidential election in 2004 and strengthen his campaign to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction with the threat of the use of force.

Election battles still undecided early Wednesday include a Senate seat in Minnesota, where Walter Mondale, a former vice president and one-time U ambassador to Japan, was running against Republican Norm Coleman for the seat held by way of the late Wellstone. However, media reports said Mondale had squandered to Coleman.

In gubernatorial races, meanwhile, Florida Gov Jeb Bush, the president's brother, claimed reelection to a other term.

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