 Despite his pronounced independence streak, the national party rallied behind Chafee, seeing him as the only way to hold a seat from the most Democratic state in the nation where 11 percent of voters are registered as Republicans. Challenger Stephen Laffey, the mayor of Cranston, who garnered 46 percent to Chafee's 54 percent, ran a blustery campaign, arguing that Chafee's independence from the GOP made him almost irrelevant and that his unpredictable voting patterns suggest a "political identity crisis." Laffey received much support from the anti-tax Club for Growth. |