NATION AND WORLD
Page 13
GOP pushing for 25-seat House gain
Rv United Press International
WASHINGTON — Republicans, their chances of winning a House majority virtually nil, hope a nationwide conservative tide will give them the 25-seat gain they need tomorrow to push through key programs.
A United Press International survey of the "Hot 100" races that will decide control of the 435-member chamber and interviews with strategists in both parties indicate the GOP will fall short of that goal and pick up between 10 and 15 seats.
As late poll evidence showed President Reagan maintaining a broad lead across the nation yesterday, Republicans clung to his political coattails to seek the big pickup they must have to regain working control of the House.
THAT WAS THE situation in Reagan's first two years in office, when enough conservative Southern Democrats, called "Boll Wee
vils," crossed the aisle to help pass Reagan's economic and military spending programs.
But Democrats won 26 seats in 1982 to block that coalition
Democrats, who outnumber Republicans 267-168 going into tomorrow's elections, predict they will win more than 10 seats this time.
They need only win 16 of the 'Hot 100' seats to gain the 218 total necessary for numerical control of the House, and that should be easy since 55 of those races are seen leaning toward Democratic candidates. Of the rest, 20 are leaning toward Republicans, and the remaining 25 seats are tossups.
Neither party predicts any major coattail effect on House races from a Reagan landslide victory, but GOP analysts see a minimum gain of 15 seats and say with Reagan's strength several other races hold the potential for making possible a 25-seat gain.
THERE WAS LITTLE noticeable movement in the key
races over the weekend, but in one tossup race, in Colorado's 3rd District where Democrat W Mitchell and Republican Michael Strang seek an open seat created by a Democratic retirement, a late poll gave Strang a significant edge.
The Denver Post-KCNC TV poll gave Strang 52 percent to Mitchell's 33."
None of the House leaders, either on the Democratic or Republican side of the aisle, are in difficulty.
Republicans, who gained 36 seats in 1980 but have not controlled the House outright in 30 years, have sought in the closing days to link Democrats to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as much as they have linked GOP candidates to Reagan.
FOR THEIR PART, many Democrats have edged away from their underdog, presidential standard-bearer and in the closing days offered themselves as a balancing factor to an charge on
social programs that a Reagan victory might bring.
Celooh and New Rig conservative Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-GA., differed sharply on the outcome of news on CBIS "the Face the Nation."
Although a 25-seat gain could let the GOP control some key issues, one democratic analyst said, "The Boll Weevils are more reluctant (than they were in 1981-82) to jump ship, for a lot of reasons.
"The worst we'll do is lose 10 seats; possibly still picking up a few. So we're in substantial control," said Coehling. Gingrich said that the Democrats were going to gain well over 20 seats because of fears of a Democratic tax hike.
HOUSE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN chief Guy Dameron Jagt, R-Mich., pins much of his hope for large GOP gains on party identification polls, which he said for the first time show as many people identifying themselves as Republicans.
Polls predict shift in governors' races
By United Press International
WASHINGTON — With 13 governors' races at stake in tomorrow's election, Republicans hope to take command of at least two new governors 'mansions and Democrats' from a woman into the top seal in Vermont.
With incumbents bowing out of seven races, pollsters forecast the GOP will pick up North Carolina, Rhode Island, Utah and West Virginia in races that may slightly change the present alignment of 35 Democratic and 15 Republican governors.
A landslide for President Reagan
notwithstanding, political experts on both sides said that prospect would have little "coatall" effect since the contests usually hang on local issues.
DEMOCRATS HOPE to pick up governorships in Vermont, where former Lt. Gov. Madeleine Kunin is in a dead heat with Republican state Attorney General John Eastron Jr., and in North Dakota and Washington, where Republican incumbents are in trouble.
Washington's Republican Gov. John Spellman, under fire for increasing state taxes, is in an uphill battle against Democrat Booth Gardner, an heir to the Weyerhaeuser
timber fortune, who outspent Spellman.
North Dakota's Republican Gov. Allen Olson, who had trouble over the misdeeds of some of his appointees and faced criticism over excessive spending, has a slight edge against Democratic Rep. George Sinner.
In Utah, House Speaker Norman Bangerter has a good chance of becoming the state's first Republican governor in 20 years in a race with former Democratic Rep. Wayne Owens for the job left open by the surprise retirement of Democratic Gov. Scott Matheson.
University Daily Kansan, November 5. 1984
ON THE OTHER side of
the country. Republican Ren James
Martin is leading in North Carolina over his Democratic challenger, Attorney General Rufus Edmisten. The race is overshaded by the bitter battle between outgoing Democrat Gov. James Hunt and Republican Sen. Jesse Helms for Helms' Senate seat.
In Rhode Island, Edward DIPre has a solid chance of taking the governor's mansion for the GOP for the first time in 16 years.
New Hampshire's Republican Gov. John Sununu is favored to win over state Democratic leader Chris Spirou despite Sununu's support of the controversial Seabrook nuclear power plant.
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Democratic victories may alter Senate base
By United Press International
WASHINGTON — Republicans, clutching President Reagan's coattails, went into the last hours of the 1984 campaign yesterday confident of the Senate but concerned about Democratic inroads and possible unsets.
The GOP, now holding a 55-45 Senate majority, is expected to lose the Tennessee seat being vacated by retiring Senate Republican leader Howard Baker, seems to be out of it in Iowa and faces tossup races in North Carolina and Illinois.
Republicans also are a little edgy over late-blooming surges by Democrats in Texas and Mississippi — although these, according to the latest polls, still must be rated as long shots.
IF REAGAN IS re-elected — and all polls indicate the voters are ready to give him a second term — Republicans can afford to lose as many as five Senate seats and still retain a numerical majority.
But a loss of even two of three seats could spell trouble for Reagan's agenda and rob the administration of the power base in Congress it has used in the last four years to offset the Democratic House.
The continued production of the MX nuclear missile, approved in the Senate last year when Vice President George Bush broke a tie, could be defeated, for example, with a smaller GOP majority.
Two of the Senate's multi-term incumbents — Republican Sens.
Charles Perkins of Illinois and Jesse Helms of North Carolina — are caught in tight, bitter and expensive races.
A WASHINGTON POST-ABC拍,
released yesterday, gave Percy,
the Foreign Relations Committee
chairman, a 49 to 40 percent lead
over Rep. Paul Simon, a liberal
downstate five-term congressman.
But the race could be much closer
than it would have been if the
lender makes inroads into Percy's
base among liberals, blacks and
Jews.
The North Carolina contest between Helms, seeking a third term, and popular Gov. James Hunt is even closer. A Gallup Poll yesterday showed Helms, the high priest of conservative politics, with a 49 to 46 percent lead, well within the margin of error.
Democratic Rep. Albert Gore, the 36-year-old son of a former senator, is rated a sure win in Tennessee as a Republican who has failed to make any headway.
In Iowa, where Republican Roger Jepsen was running even with Rep. Tom Harikin for months, even moving ahead in some samplings, the tide appears to be moving toward the Democrats.
The Democrats have not rulied out upsets in Texas, where state Sen. Lloyd Doggett is 13 points behind Rep. Phil Gramm, a former Democrat who switched to the GOP in 1983. He was nominated for president and Mississippi, where former Gov. William Winter is making a late run at Sen. Thad Cochran.
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