Bush and Clinton join battle in Florida

President Bush yesterday conducted a storming election tour through the American heartland that seemed to display more energy and passion than his famously laid-back campaign for the presidency two years ago.

Starting in Florida, where he had been helping to shore up his brother Jeb's attempt to be re-elected governor, the president flew to four electorally crucial Midwestern states, and has a similar schedule planned for today, before heading to his Texas ranch to vote tomorrow morning.

Though the presidency is not at stake in these elections, the results will set the tone for the next two years before Mr Bush has to face the voters again in 2004. The momentum he gets tomorrow will also be crucial in giving him the authority to wage a war on Iraq, especially if he has to do so without UN support.

The expectation is that, whatever happens, the Republicans will get the best set of mid-term results of any governing party since 1962, when John F Kennedy was in the White House.

All 435 seats for the House of Representatives, 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate and 35 of the 50 state governorships plus thousands of local offices are at stake. Traditionally, presidents are pummelled by protest votes at this stage; it happened to Ronald Reagan in 1982 and - spectacularly - to Bill Clinton in 1994.

However, this time the Democrats have only faint hopes of regaining control of the House of Representatives which they lost that year, even though they only need a six-seat swing. They do expect significant victories in the governors' races, but the contest for control of the Senate, currently held by the Democrats by only one seat, continues to baffle experts. "For the first time in 30 years I don't have the faintest idea which side is going to gain seats in the Senate," said the political analyst Charlie Cook.

The confusion remains greatest in Minnesota, where two polls produced completely conflicting results for the 74-year-old former vice-president Walter Mondale, who returned as a Democratic candidate after the death of Senator Paul Wellstone in a plane crash 10 days ago. One of the state's two main papers, the Star Tribune, showed Mr Mondale 5% ahead; its rival, the Pioneer Press, had him 6% behind.

Sympathy for the Democrats in Minnesota has been dissipated by the over-partisan memorial service for Mr Well stone last Tuesday, which turned into a campaign rally. His Republican opponent, Norm Coleman, is winning credit for his dignity in an impossible situation. He is due to hold a debate with Mr Mondale this morning, which could be crucial. However, hopes are already fading for Bill McBride, Jeb Bush's Democratic challenger in Florida, whose surge in the polls was halted by a weak performance in a debate last month.

Both the president and his predecessor, Bill Clinton, were in Florida at the weekend. Mr Clinton was as dynamic as ever as a campaigner, urging Democrats to get out and vote. "If you don't go out this time because of what happened last time, it's like them taking your vote away twice," he told a cheering crowd in Miami, before dropping into a Starbucks, where a crowd blew kisses through the window.

However, there remains controversy about whether the Clintonian knack of galvanising his party's core vote was outweighed by a negative effect on voters in the conservative northern part of the state.

On a national level, a New York Times/CBS poll yesterday brought little clarity to the generally muddy picture. However, two aspects in particular were worrying for the Democrats. Among "likely" voters, 47% said they would vote Republican in the Congressional elections and only 40% Democrat. Asked whether each party had "a clear plan for the country", 42% said the Republicans did, and only 31% said the Democrats did.

The mystery concerns the extent to which likely voters are going to turn into real ones. "Turnout is everything," said the pollster John Zogby yesterday. Barely half the electorate bothered to vote in the last presidential election, and a mid-term poll is likely to attract even fewer. But increasingly relaxed rules on absentee ballots mean that in many states a decent proportion of the electorate has already voted.

Against that, the prevailing tone of the TV advertising has touched yet another new low in mendacious negativity, and it is certain that a great many voters want nothing to do with either party.