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STORY: U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky declares victory winning re-election to a sixth term, boosting Republican hopes of taking majority control in the chamber.

McConnell, age 72, who was first elected in 1984, defeated Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, a 35-year-old Democrat who refused to say during the campaign whether she had voted for the unpopular Democratic President Barack Obama.