Carnage on Capitol Hill: Iraq fatally wounds Republicans

Not even Osama bin Laden paraded on the White House lawn would be enough to save the party now. A rout in the polls on Tuesday is likely to leave George Bush a dead duck president

In this stunningly beautiful American autumn of 2006, there is the whiff of fin de régime in the air - or rather of the end of two regimes. On Tuesday the United States votes in the most closely fought, and closely followed, mid-term elections in memory. Not only could they signify the end of Republican dominance on Capitol Hill which, apart from a hiatus in the Senate in 2001 and 2002, has lasted without interruption since Newt Gingrich and his shock troops over-ran both House and Senate in 1994, forcing Bill Clinton to protest forlornly that the Presidency was "still relevant". The other probable casualty is the era of George W Bush.

No, the name of the 44th President does not appear on any ballot this week, and even when the results are in, he will still be spending another 26 months and 12 days in the White House. Yet at these mid-terms, the 80 million or so Americans expected to vote will be doing far more than electing a new House of Representatives and re-assigning a third of the 100 seats in the Senate. They will be conducting a referendum on a presidency that is a subject of keen debate among historians over whether it is merely one of the worst, or the very worst, in the country's history.

Like his father, this George Bush began his political career with defeat, in a failed bid for a Congressional seat in the midterms of 1978. Since then he has had a perfect winning record, twice for the governorship of Texas, twice for the White House, and in the 2002 elections where - even though he was not running - Bush's popularity swept his Republicans to victory in both Senate and House. But now, barring a miracle, the wheel of Bush's electoral fortunes will come full circle.

This was always going to be a noxious political year for Republicans. There is the general feeling that they have been around too long, that they have been irredeemably corrupted by power. They have been buffeted by lobbying and sex scandals. They are victims of the abysmal standing of a Congress they control but of which just 25 per cent of Americans approve. But the biggest cross they bear is their own President and his disastrous war in Iraq. This time around, not only has Mr Bush no coat-tails. He barely has a coat. Defeat, to borrow another presidential metaphor, would leave him not so much a lame duck as a dead duck.

Less than 48 hours before the vote, every sign is that his party is heading for precisely that. In the House, the swing to the Democrats won't match the 52- seat net gain by the Republicans in Gingrich's year of revolution in 1994. But that is simply because so much boundary gerrymandering (or, more politely, "re-districting") has taken place since that only 40, at most 50, of the 435 Congressional seats are competitive. But of these, almost all are tilting the Democrats' way. They need to capture a net 15 Republican-held seats to win control. The smart money now says 25 or 30 - a margin that would give Nancy Pelosi, as the first woman Speaker in US history, a workable majority.

Ditto the elections in 36 of the 50 states to choose new governors. Here, Democrats are expected to pick up at least six, and perhaps more of the 22 Republican-held state houses being contested. The real question mark is control of the Senate, 33 of whose 100 seats are at stake this year. Even a couple of months ago, the current Republican majority of six looked impregnable, but no longer.

The outcome depends on the races in seven Republican-held seats, in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Montana, Missouri, Virginia and Tennessee. Assuming they hold their one slightly iffy seat in New Jersey, Democrats have to win six out of the seven. The first three have more or less been written off by Republicans. Everything now hinges on Montana and the southern/border trio that ends the list. All four are toss-ups. But if Democrats can somehow snatch three of them, Nevada's quiet-spoken Harry Reid, a former small town lawyer, will become Senate majority leader and for George Bush, the great domed white building at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue will become uniformly hostile territory.

Yet the Democrats' giddy expectations, are tinged by fear. Just why, they wonder, are the President and his Svengali, Karl Rove, displaying on the campaign trail such unshakeable conviction these last few days that, against all the visible odds, Republicans will hang on to not only the Senate, but the House as well? True, Bush's connection with reality has become tenuous, but Rove's mystique lives on.

What will the old conjuror and sleaze-meister pull out of his bag of tricks this time? A voting machine scam, perhaps, or some wheeze to depress Democratic turnout? Or might the Saddam Hussein verdict and sentencing due today influence matters? Earlier last week John Kerry, Bush's vanquished foe in 2004, did his unwitting bit for the Republican cause with a botched joke about the troops. Bush, however, trumped that gaffe with his pledge to retain the services of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, symbol of everything that's gone wrong in Iraq. All the anecdotal evidence now is that opinion is hardening against the Republicans. Even the unveiling of Osama bin Laden, shackled and blindfolded on the White House lawn, probably wouldn't make much difference.

The Republicans' last, best hope is their traditional financial edge, and their famous ability to get out the vote - the so-called "72 Hour Plan" for the campaign's final stages, that is now in full swing. Money and volunteers are flooding into marginal districts and the pivotal Senate races in Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia - and now Montana as well, where Republicans now see hope.

Such mass mobilisation trumped Kerry in 2004 in swing states like Ohio. The polls may predict a sweeping victory, but two years ago Democrats learned the hard way the truth of Yogi Berra's celebrated adage: it ain't over till it's over. Already, however, two things are certain. These will be the most expensive mid-terms ever, costing more than $3bn, (£1.6bn) equivalent to roughly $40 per likely vote cast. They have also been among the nastiest.

A polarised electorate and dozens of close races have created a perfect storm for negative advertising. Watch the ads, and your upstanding candidate comes across as anything from a child-murdering abortion nut, to a pervert dedicated to ensuring that Parkinson's sufferers experience the most painful death possible (that is if they have any time left over from womanising, bribe-taking and fighting to stay out of jail).

In fact, the real criticism of the likely winners on Tuesday is that they have nothing much new to offer. But all Democrats have to do in 2006, is not be Republicans. Who needs an elaborate plan when a slogan of just two words suffices: "Had Enough?"

The oldest rule of elections is that oppositions don't win them, governments lose them. And with its scandals, with its failure to tackle the real problems facing the country, above all with its calamitous adventure in Iraq, the Bush administration and its complaisant stooges in the majority on Capitol Hill have between them done enough to lose half a dozen elections.