Although they failed to capture the White House, Republicans retained their majorities in both houses of Congress for the first time in many decades, holding off an aggressive, well-financed Democratic offensive.

Since the party holding the White House usually loses seats in mid-term elections, especially in a president's second term, Republicans can look forward with some confidence to extending those majorities in 1998 congressional elections.

"The Republican Party took the best shots its opponents could offer in the 1996 elections and survived, after making some very serious mistakes in the last Congress,'' said Michael Malbin, a Republican who is also a political scientist at the State University of New York in Albany.

`The party got a reprieve. They dodged a bullet and emerged somewhat chastened. Now, they must build a case to become the majority party in US politics,'' Malbin said.

"There is a vacuum in the middle in US politics and it's not clear which party is going to fill it.'' William Kristol, editor of the conservative weekly The Standard, said Republicans had emerged from their 1996 battles without a common unifying agenda.

"The test for Republicans is, having survived 1996, can they be somewhat imaginative and bold in framing an agenda. Right now, there are too many Republicans who are too complacent about their prospects,'' Kristol said.

He said the 1996 election carried some worrying signs for Republicans. Bob Dole, the party's presidential nominee, only won 41 percent of the popular vote and ran particularly weakly among women, Catholics and ethnic minorities.

The party lost ground within the growing Hispanic community.

Republicans extended their grip over the South but lost ground elsewhere, especially the Northeast and California.

In 1960, Republicans from the South comprised less than four percent of the party's representatives in Congress. By 1996, that proportion had grown to 32 percent. Southerners now fill almost all the leadership positions in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Southern Republicans tend to be more conservative than their northern colleagues. They are also more religious and more interested in social issues, such as abortion and the restoration of school prayer.

As the party more and more reflects that southern image, moderate Republicans from the North are in danger of becoming an endangered species. In 1997, for the first time ever, the state of Massachusetts will send a congressional delegation to Washington without a single Republican.

"The Republicans are in danger of losing a chunk of their moderate base and that may be a real problem down the road,'' said Allan Lichtman, a historian at American University in Washington.

Brian Kennedy, Republican chairman in the state of Iowa, said the party badly needed a "charismatic, unifying candidate for president in the year 2000.'' But Ann Stone, a moderate Republican activist, said the divisions were so deep it was unlikely a single figure could heal them. Republicans, she said, faced a choice of becoming a regional conservative powerhouse entrenched in the South and Rocky Mountain are or becoming a true national majority party.