FIRMLY IN CONTROL

He may have won re-election and a majority in both houses of Congress, but George W. Bush shouldn't expect a free ride on Capitol Hill. Republicans maintained their control of the House and expanded their lead in the Senate, with at least 54 seats in their column (the results of the Alaska race were not clear at press time). In South Dakota, former representative John Thune even managed to bump off Democratic Minority Leader Tom Daschle, the first Senate party chief to be ousted at the polls in 52 years. That's just one more reason the bitter divide that shaped the presidential campaign could make this Congress one of the most partisan and polarized ever.

Without 60 GOP votes in the Senate to shut off Democratic filibusters, Bush will have a hard time making leeway on his signature plan to overhaul Social Security. Senate Democrats had already stymied Bush's judicial appointments to the lower courts during his first term. Now they'll wrestle over the one to three Supreme Court vacancies he's expected to fill during the next four years. "It's going to be a mess," says one House Republican aide. "If people thought the partisan fighting was bad this Congress, that things didn't get done, just wait... Democrats will be even more bitter than they've been the last four years." Democrats remain skeptical that Bush will do much to change the tone in Washington this time around. "Bush never lived up to that 'uniter, not a divider' promise," says one Democratic Hill staffer. "There's no reason to think he'd do it now."

One reason for all the bitterness: the GOP's lock on the House was due largely to Republican-controlled redistricting in a number of states--especially Texas, where the GOP, led by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, picked up four seats after forcing Democratic incumbents into tough re-election bids. Despite a strong push by moderate-to-conservative Democratic Senate candidates, Republicans kept control of the upper chamber, too, with wins in close races in Oklahoma, North Carolina and Kentucky. Getting rid of Daschle was a real coup: the win was not only a psychological boost for the GOP, but it also forced the Democrats to shake up their leadership team.

Much of the politics was local: they debated energy policy in Alaska, a tobacco buyout in North Carolina, a national sales tax in South Carolina. But Republicans also managed to catch Bush's coattails, echoing the president's message on national security, the economy and social issues. They may also have picked up steam from conservatives drawn to the polls by successful ballot initiatives banning gay marriage in 11 states. In California, bipartisan crowds showed up to support Proposition 71, an initiative to provide $3 billion in state funds for stem-cell research.

Democrats didn't even try to hitch a ride on their party's ticket. In Colorado, moderate Democrat Ken Salazar distanced himself from John Kerry, managing to be busy nearly every time the candidate showed up in his state. Daschle even ran an ad of himself hugging Bush after 9/11, but it wasn't enough. The Democrats also benefited from the GOP's self-inflicted wounds in Illinois, where newcomer Barack Obama--just the third black member of the Senate since Reconstruction--gave his party a pickup. Yet the Democrats couldn't recoup the loss of having so many incumbents retire--including North Carolina's own John Edwards.

But when Congress returns to Washington, Bush will see plenty of familiar faces: Kerry will be back in his Senate seat. And Hillary Rodham Clinton will be there as well, perhaps ready to burnish her own record for 2008. Here's how some of the hottest races turned out: