1996: 'Comeback Kid' wins second term

Bill Clinton is basking in a resounding victory over Republican Bob Dole and the prospect of four more years in the White House.

He is the first Democratic President in US history to be re-elected since Franklin D Roosevelt, taking 49.2% of the popular vote to Mr Dole's 40.8%.

With voter turnout at its lowest in nearly 70 years at just over 49%, Democrats took 379 electoral votes and 31 states and the District of Columbia, including former Republican strongholds of Florida and Arizona.

Republicans got 159 electoral votes and just 19 states while billionaire Ross Perot, standing as an independent. took no states at all.

Republican control

But it was not all good news for the Democrats as Republicans retained control of both houses of Congress which they won during the congressional elections two years ago.

They increased their hold on the Senate by one seat where they now have a 54-45 lead.

Republican Party Chairman Haley Barbour said the re-election of President Clinton was, in fact, a victory for his rivals.

"On taxes and on a balanced budget and on crime, Bill Clinton sounded like a Republican. This election was a validation of the Republican Congress," he said.

However, the Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, who led a highly unpopular Republican "revolution" that blocked the budget last year, was conciliatory today saying his party had a duty to "reach out" to the president.

President Clinton has once again earned his nickname of the "Comeback Kid", undeterred by the recent Whitewater real estate scandal still under investigation.

In a speech to 40,000 supporters at his home town of Little Rock alongside his wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea, the former governor of Arkansas said the voters "are sending us a message - work together, meet our challenges, put aside the politics of division and build America's community together".

He added: "It's time to put country ahead of party."

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