If politics were fair, Lincoln Chafee, a maverick who declined to cast a ballot for President George W Bush at the last election and was the only senator in his party to vote against the Iraq war, would be cruising to victory. Instead, the blue-blooded scion of a prominent New England family who is the most popular politician in his state, is staring at defeat in next week's mid-term vote because of one most inconvenient fact – he is a Republican.America's smallest state, Rhode Island, home to a well-heeled yachting set and peppered with sumptuous mansions once frequented by the Astors, Vanderbilts and Kennedys, prides itself on being insulated from the grubby machine politics of the rest of the country. Mr Chafee, who inherited his senate seat when his father John died in office in 1998, has typified this by repeatedly bucking the party whip. He is a strong supporter of legal abortion and is one of the few senators, and the only Republican in the Senate, to have expressed support for same-sex marriages.
The senator challenged Mr Bush on tax cuts and recently single-handedly delayed the appointment of John Bolton as the president's UN ambassador. But with Mr Bush slumping to a 22 per cent popularity rating in Rhode Island – the lowest rating of all 50 states – the Chafee balancing act appears to have come to an end. The Democrats need to gain six seats to take control of the Senate and Rhode Island, where Mr Chafee trails narrowly in the polls, is firmly in their sights.