PROVIDENCE -- Republican Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee, fueled by a furious grass-roots campaign that produced a record GOP primary voter turnout, won Senate renomination yesterday, beating back a spirited challenge from Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey, the combative conservative.

On a sun-splashed late summer day, conventional Rhode Island political wisdom turned out to be correct -- that a large turnout would play to the advantage of Chafee.

Chafee won Warwick easily, did surprisingly well in Laffey's backyard in Cranston and won the East Bay communities of East Providence, Bristol and Barrington by comfortable margins.

With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Chafee led Laffey 54.2 percent to 45.8 percent. The turnout of 63,459 smashed the record turnout for a Rhode Island GOP primary.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," said Chafee to a boisterous crowd of supporters at the Providence Biltmore hotel.

"When I ran for the Senate in 2000, I promised you that I would always be honest, that I would always have the guts to take the hard votes and that I would strive to work constructively with everyone in Washington," Chafee said. "I believe I have kept those promises."

He acknowledged being asked often: "Why are you a Republican?" And he repeated his definition of Republicanism, including fiscal discipline, environmental protection, individual liberty, aversion to foreign entanglements and "a willingess to use the tools of government to help the poor and the vulnerable."

A subdued Laffey conceded at 10:40 p.m. at the Warwick Crowne Plaza hotel, thanking supporters and pledging to back Chafee in the general election.

"The voters have spoken," said Laffey. "Tomorrow morning I'm going back to being the mayor of Cranston."

Chafee won 26 of the state's 39 communities, while Laffey carried 13.

In Warwick, where he served as mayor, Chafee won with 62 percent, while Laffey -- who has been Cranston mayor for four years -- captured just 53 percent of Cranston's vote.

Chafee also prevailed in the ribbon of communities from East Providence, through Bristol, Warren and over the Mount Hope Bridge to Portsmouth, Middletown and Newport.

Laffey did best in Hopkinton, Burrillville, Johnston, Cumberland and Woonsocket.

Chafee's victory didn't come easily. It was forged by a voter turnout effort that involved hundreds of volunteers working key precincts from Westerly to Woonsocket. Internal Chafee campaign tracking polls last week showed Laffey pulling narrowly ahead, which sparked Chafee's campaign to work even harder.

Laffey appeared to be the victim of overconfidence; he and his supporters stoutly predicted victory for weeks; he even took Monday off from campaigning, in commemoration of the five-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Chafee defeated Laffey after a caustic campaign that pitted the national conservative movement, which supported Laffey, against Chafee's brand of moderation. The two sides and their supporters spent close to $5 million on the campaign, a record for a Rhode Island primary. That amounted to nearly $90 per vote.

The son of John H. Chafee, the former governor and senator, Lincoln Chafee is heir to one of New England's pedigreed blue-blood families.

Yesterday's victory vaults him into a Nov. 7 general election contest against Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, who hails from a similiar patrician background. Whitehouse easily won his primary yesterday.

Their race will be Rhode Island's version of the WASP preppy political Olympics. Chafee's and Whitehouse's fathers were roommates at Yale University. Both candidates were schooled at prestigious New England prep schools -- St. Paul's for Whitehouse, Phillips Andover for Chafee. They are graduates of Ivy League colleges -- Yale (Whitehouse) and Brown (Chafee).

Their children go to school together at Providence's private Wheeler School. Chafee's brother, Zechariah Chafee, a federal prosecutor, worked under Whitehouse when he was U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island.

"I think he is a great guy; I think he has a wonderful family," said Whitehouse in an interview several weeks ago. "His brother worked with me and he is a great prosecutor."

That veneer of politesse may be stripped away quickly under the heat of a rough campaign. With all the national attention this race is sure to draw, each side's supporters will probably air the nasty television ads that are a staple of modern campaigns.

The challenge for Chafee will be to keep the campaign focused on his record as an independent voice for Rhode Island, a man who has the courage to vote his conscience on tough issues -- such as the Iraq war.

Whitehouse's task will be to make the race about national issues, particularly breaking the Republican lock on Washington, D.C. That argument should have traction in a navy blue state where President Bush's job approval numbers have been consistently in the low 20s for much of the past year

At stake is control of the U.S. Senate. Democrats need to win six seats to accomplish that; national experts say that won't happen unless Rhode Island flips from Republican to Democratic.

The Club for Growth, a Washington, D.C. conservative anti-tax group, poured more than $1 million into the primary to support Laffey. Laffey also had support from anti-gay and anti-abortion groups from Ohio that unleashed a series of nasty telephone push-polls against Chafee, one of which included a grisly description of a rarely used medical procedure known as a late-term abortion.

Washington's Republican establishment fought back. While Chafee may be a rebel in the Senate, party leaders saw him as the GOP's only chance to keep the seat in Republican hands. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, the North Carolina Republican who heads the campaign arm of Senate Republicans, has said the national party would not put any campaign money into Rhode Island had Chafee lost yesterday, in effect ceding the seat to Democrats.

Pre-primary polling showed Chafee and Whitehouse locked in a tight general election contest.

Polls show Chafee's positions in line with the Rhode Island general election electorate; he is a supporter of legal abortion, gay rights and embryonic stem-cell research, an internationalist in foreign policy and is an anti-deficit, pay-as-you-go moderate on tax and spending programs.

But the angry conservative base of the GOP has developed a visceral loathing of Chafee that was never the case with his father, who had much the same political views as his son but was more pragmatic in dealings with fellow Republicans.

In an off-the-cuff concession speech last night, Laffey picked longtime friends and supporters out of the crowd and thanked them for knocking on doors with him for four years, since his first run for mayor.

What's next for Laffey? "Who knows?" he said, with a smile. "I liked making money; maybe I'll go back to that. . . . We had a lot of fun. It was never a labor. It was golf without the clubs."

As the hours dwindled to the 9 o'clock poll-closing hour last night, Whitehouse said he had no preference as to whom he ran against.

"They will both do the exact same things: go down to Washington, contribute to a Republican-controlled Senate and that will prevent any new change or new direction for the country," said Whitehouse.

With staff reports from Scott Mayerowitz

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