POLITICAL NOTES: Up Elephant

How would the nation go if there were a Presidential election now? This week’s Gallup Poll answer: Republican.

Everywhere except in the South, where the Democrats do not need votes anyhow, pollsters found a marked movement to the G.O.P. The overall party sympathy score: Republican 51%, Democratic 49% (in the 1944 election the Democrats got 53.3% of the popular vote).

As to candidates: President Truman’s popularity had dived deep from a high of 87% soon after V-J day; now only 43 of every 100 polled voters approved of the way he was doing his job. Republicans’ percentage preferences for 1948: Dewey 38, Stassen 28, Bricker 9, Vandenberg 7 MlacArthur 6, Taft 4, Eisenhower 2, others 6.