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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch will be the longest-serving U.S. senator in state history after winning a record sixth term Tuesday against a Democrat who was seeking his first public office.
The call for Hatch in the Senate race was based on a number of factors, including voter turnout, previous voting patterns and a statistical analysis of the vote from voter interviews conducted for The Associated Press by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International.
Hatch's victory over Pete Ashdown could result in Hatch being named chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, which handles tax bills and oversees social security and Medicare.
Hatch, a Republican who opposes abortion, wants to use his influence to advocate for federally funded embryonic stem cell research. He believes stem cells are the key to preventing diseases. Federal support for stem cell research is one of the few issues on which Hatch disagrees with President Bush.
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Hatch has been a staunch supporter of the war in Iraq and voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act, which he helped shepherd through Congress.
Evan Terry, an 88-year-old certified public accountant, said he also supports the war in Iraq.
"I'm 100 percent behind President Bush," Terry said outside of his polling location at Washington Elementary School. "These radical Democrats and the media are off base. They don't tell you about the good that's going on over there."
Ashdown contends the U.S. should not have invaded Iraq and that Iraqis should decide when American troops leave. During the campaign, Ashdown criticized Hatch for not questioning the intelligence that led up to the invasion of Iraq.
Harvey Robbins, a 32-year-old Salt Lake City investment adviser, supports Bush and voted for Hatch.
"I feel we're at the point it would be foolish to pull out of (Iraq). It's unfortunate we're there in the first place, but we've got to stay there for a little while," he said.
One theme on which Ashdown campaigned is that Hatch had been in office so long, he'd lost touch with Utah voters.
Gordon Doolin, a 64-year-old Salt Lake City retiree, voted Republican his entire life -- until Tuesday. He said Bush botched the war in Iraq and that those who support him should be voted out, including Hatch.
"He's an old man that needs to retire," Doolin said. "We can't blame the war on Iraq on the president alone because you had those morons backing him."
Only former U.S. Sen. Reed Smoot -- who served from 1903 to 1933 -- has represented Utah as long as Hatch. But Hatch has been elected more. Smoot's first term was an appointment by the state Legislature.
Ashdown pledged that if elected he would only serve three terms unless he could work to eliminate what he considers an innate incumbent advantage in fundraising.
He said candidates should be required to share their money so everyone has an equal opportunity to get ideas across. Hatch raised more money in a single afternoon -- more than $500,000 from an August fundraiser when President Bush was in town addressing the American Legion -- than Ashdown did in the entire campaign.
Ashdown, the founder of Utah's first Internet service provider company, tried to harness the power of the Internet to spread his message through a MySpace social networking Web page, blogs and campaign videos posted at YouTube.com.
In debates and commercials, Hatch cast his experience in the Senate as a positive and Ashdown as a negative.
Ashdown believes the seniority system in Congress should be eliminated in favor of a lottery.
But Hatch said his seniority has allowed him to get choice committee assignments, such as being chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
Some voters said they weren't impressed with what Hatch had done with his seniority.
Jana Baldwin, a 24-year-old volunteer coordinator for a homeless shelter, said she used to be a Hatch supporter. But after working in his Washington, D.C., office she said she became a Democrat in 2004.
"He did not care about any sort of health issues, women's issues, drug programs or social issues in general," Baldwin said.
Since 1988, Hatch has never received less than 66 percent of the vote in an election.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
