Bush wins big, and so the 2004 campaign starts here

This was a campaign in which George Bush gambled heavily and was repaid in kind.

As Republicans yesterday celebrated their recapture of Congress and shocked Democrats looked for scapegoats, there was a consensus on one issue: the President had put himself on the line in these elections and his decision to do so had paid off handsomely.

From the enemy camp came the white flag and the following assessment by Terry McAuliffe, Democratic Party chairman: Bush's campaign for Republicans had it all, he said. The 11 September attacks, the war on terror, the threat of war in Iraq – "You put all that together with the President out there actively campaigning," and it added up to defeats for his Democrats.

While his personal campaigning in many of the key battles helped Republican candidates to secure victory, by putting himself at the centre of the election Mr Bush has also personally come out in a much stronger position by virtue of his party's overall success.

Not only has he increased his authority to wage a military campaign against Iraq, but he will also find it easier to push his agenda through Congress, including proposals to make his tax cut permanent, create a department of Homeland Security and secure confirmations for his federal judicial nominees. "He has finally won his mandate," said one commentator.

The President pulled this off by keeping things simple. He campaigned at a furious rate and fought to keep the issues focused on areas where Republicans were seen to be strong. Iraq, the ongoing threat from terrorism and the need to develop a strong homeland security dominated the agenda, not allowing Democrats to focus on issues such as the economy and corporate fraud in which they might have scored more heavily.

"The Republicans nationalised the campaign and the Democrats did not," said Curtis Gans, director of the independent Committee for the Study of the American Electorate.

The Republican Trent Lott, the Mississippi senator who will become Senate majority leader, went much further. "I think it was a referendum on [Mr Bush's] leadership and he really showed it," he said. "The American people said, 'Yes, we trust this man and we want to have a Congress that will work with him and will get some things done.' "

Mr Bush also put himself about like no president before him. Known for his general dislike of travel, Mr Bush criss-crossed the country as the campaign hotted up, visiting candidates in key battles where advisers believed his presence could make a vital difference. Paying visits to three, four, even five states in a single day was not uncommon. In all, he visited a total of 25 states on the campaign trail.

Aides said that the unprecedented schedule took a toll on the normally super-fit and energetic President, making him grouchy and bad-tempered in the final five days of the campaign. Officials said that at the weekend he appeared to be coming down with a sore throat.

This tiredness was evident in Mr Bush's language on the stump, which became increasingly strained even by his standards. Last Friday in New Hampshire, talking of the threat of terrorism, he said: "They hide in caves. They send suiciders out." In Georgia on Saturday, he referred to the Republican candidate Saxby Chambliss as "Sonny", and speaking on Monday in Iowa about homeland security, he promised: "We can't have a big thick of bureaucratic rules."

No one seemed to mind these slips. Candidates blessed with a presidential visit seemed delighted and hopeful, optimistic that they would be carried on the presidential coat-tails.

It is not that Mr Bush secured victories for every candidate in whom he invested his time and effort. The Senate races of South Dakota and Arkansas both went to the Democrats against the odds, despite strong involvement by the President, who last weekend found himself campaigning against his predecessor, Bill Clinton, in the former president's home state.

But there are many more races in which Mr Bush's personal intervention is considered to have been a crucial factor in the victories secured by Republicans. Georgia, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire and North Carolina were all sites of closely fought battles in which the presidential influence was cited as something which helped to tip things in favour of the Republican candidates.

The White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said yesterday that the President was modest about the contribution he made, telling aides: "The credit goes to the candidates and those who focused on changing the tone."

Oddly enough, the more Mr Bush campaigned, the more his personal rating fell in most national polls. There was criticism that he was using White House resources to raise money and campaign for party political purposes. And there is little doubt that had the results of these elections been different and had the Democrats done better, Mr Bush would have been criticised and the result held up as a national rejection of those positions on which he campaigned.

Perhaps Mr Bush had no choice. White House officials said there was little option but for the President to campaign, realising that he would have been judged on the outcome regardless of how much effort he personally invested.

Mr Fleischer said: "Given the popularity of the President and the yearning by the campaigns to have him, staying at home was not an option. That would have an alienated the party." Of course, none of that matters now. Mr Bush has become only the third president since the beginning of the last century to gain House seats in a mid-term election and the first to gain Senate seats since Ronald Reagan in 1982.

Mr Bush made no public comment on the elections yesterday. Having stayed up late to watch the results on television, aides said that he was choosing to appear gracious in victory. There is little doubt, however, that as he put his feet up after his mammoth efforts Mr Bush was yesterday feeling rather pleased with himself, knowing that his gamble had paid off.