Democrats lifted from doldrums in state elections

Washington - The Republican political juggernaut has ground to a halt, at least temporarily, as the party failed to make headway in Tuesday's off-year elections for state legislatures and governorships, even in the South, where the Democrats have shown signs of terminal demise, writes Rupert Cornwell.

The Democrats' greatest cause for satisfaction came in Virginia where, despite an energetic and unstinting campaign by the state's energetic and popular Governor, George Allen, the Republicans did not seize control of the legislature in Richmond, capital of the old Confederacy. Had they done so, it would have been the first such sweep in a Southern state since the post-civil war Reconstruction. In the event, the Republicans could do no better than a 20-20 tie in the Virginia Senate. In the state's House of Representatives, the Democrats retained an unassailable 52-47 seat advantage.

More broadly, Tuesday brought new confirmation that the hard-edged Republican conservatism which now dominates Congress has less appeal at the grass roots. Paul Patton, the Democratic victor in the election for Governor of Kentucky, proclaimed after his narrow success on Tuesday that the result was "a no to Newt Gingrich and a no to cutting Medicare". The best news for Republicans came in Mississippi, where Kirk Fordice became the first Governor to win consecutive terms since the 1880s.

Some of the most interesting results were purely local. Gary, Indiana, a depressed industrial city on the shore of Lake Michigan which is 85 per cent black, elected a white mayor for the first time in 28 years. Willie Brown, the flamboyant former speaker of California's state legislature, faces a December run-off against the Republican incumbent, Frank Jordan, to determine the next mayor of San Francisco. Mr Brown, however, is expected to win.