As races get tighter, Iraq still the focus

Citing an Iraqi court’s verdict that former President Saddam Hussein was guilty of crimes against humanity, President Bush told voters during a preelection travel swing Sunday that their decisions could determine how the United States fights terrorism and the war in Iraq.

Democrats, meanwhile, used the verdict to remind voters that the administration’s overall Iraq strategy was not working.

“The world is a better place without Saddam,” said Tammy Duckworth, an Army veteran who lost both legs in Iraq and is now the Democratic candidate in a closely fought House race in Illinois. But, she added, “I don’t think this verdict means the administration has a plan for Iraq.”

The war has emerged as a central pillar of Democrats’ efforts to unseat Republicans across the country and regain majority control of the House of Representatives -- and even the Senate, once considered a longshot.

The news from Baghdad, announced 48 hours before election day, allowed the president to offer a rare ray of optimism in a war that has become increasingly unpopular. He called the court’s decision “a milestone in the Iraqi people’s efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law.”

Asked whether the verdict had been announced to coincide with the final days before the election, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow called such speculation “preposterous” -- an assessment echoed by U.S. officials in Baghdad.

“I know everyone wants to read into this some sinister plot,” said one U.S. official advising the Iraqi tribunal. “But it’s just not there.”

A midterm election poll by Pew Research Center for the People & the Press released Sunday found that Republicans had cut into the Democratic lead in voting intentions. The Pew survey found a 47%-43% Democratic lead among likely voters, down from 50% to 39% two weeks ago and a difference barely larger than the poll’s margin of error.

Republicans acknowledge that the outlook is grim in the House of Representatives, where Democrats need a gain of 15 seats to regain control. Many analysts now predict Democratic gains of 12 to 30 seats or more.

The battle for control of the Senate hinges on whether Democrats can pick up six additional seats, and their effort to do so is providing the richest drama in the campaign’s final hours. Most analysts agree that control probably comes down to which candidate wins a few narrowly contested states. In Tennessee, late polls showed the Republican candidate, Bob Corker, continuing to build a lead over his Democratic opponent, Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr.

In a week in which the GOP capitalized on a “botched joke” by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and aggressive, well-funded voter outreach, Republicans closed Democratic leads.

In Rhode Island, incumbent Sen. Lincoln Chafee moved 1 point ahead of his opponent, Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse. In Montana, where incumbent Republican Sen. Conrad Burns had been losing to Democratic farmer Jon Tester, analysts now call the race a dead heat. Missouri’s race between GOP Sen. Jim Talent and Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill, the state auditor, also remains too close to call, and Bush has made several stops in the state on Talent’s behalf.

In Missouri and elsewhere in recent days, the president has tried to raise other issues -- the economy, tax policy and Medicare -- to persuade voters to support Republican candidates. But the discussion in nearly every campaign continues to focus on Iraq.

On the Sunday talk shows, leaders of both parties sparred over the war and the election outlook. NBC’s “Meet the Press” erupted when Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.), head of the Republican reelection effort in the Senate, charged that “Democrats appear to be content with losing” in Iraq.

The head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, responded: “I will not sit idly by with an accusation that Democrats are content with losing.... We want to win and we want a new direction to Iraq.”

Tension marked campaigns around the country as well, as legal teams were being deployed to areas with tight races in preparation for challenges to vote counts and procedures. In New Mexico, an attorney for the state Democratic Party charged that Republican operatives had called Democratic households providing inaccurate information about polling places. The attorney, John Boyd, said a judge would hold a hearing on the allegations, denied by Republicans, this morning.

In a more conventional election year, neither of the districts Bush visited Sunday would have required his presence. He is making the effort to campaign for suddenly vulnerable Republicans, knowing that the results in these closely fought contests will shape the final two years of his presidency.

In Nebraska, he spoke to several thousand supporters of state Sen. Adrian Smith, seeking an open House seat in a district that has been in GOP hands for 48 years and where Republicans outnumber Democrats 2 to 1. Yet a snapshot, one-day poll last week gave his Democratic rival, rancher Scott Kleeb, a 46% to 40% lead, albeit within the 4-percentage-point margin of error.

In Topeka, Republican Jim Ryun, a former track star and three-time Olympian, was leading Nancy Boyda, a former research chemist whom he defeated by 15 percentage points two years ago. But Boyda caught the wave of anti-Iraq war sentiment that is benefiting Democrats in districts across the country where Republicans have long held sway.

The apparent surge in support for Boyda, who has run a largely grass-roots campaign, forced Ryun to seek to energize supporters, with visits from Vice President Dick Cheney and, on Sunday, from Bush.

By today, when Bush visits Arkansas and Florida, he will have visited half the states in the nation in the two months since Labor Day.

james.gerstenzang@ latimes.com

tom.hamburger@latimes.com

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Gerstenzang reported from Nebraska and Kansas and Hamburger from Washington. Times staff writer Alexandra Zavis in Baghdad contributed to this report.