POLITICAL NOTES: The Senate Sweepstakes

Who would control the new Senate? Republicans, in the minority for 13 years, needed a net gain of ten seats to take over.* To many a practiced politico, this had seemed like an insuperable obstacle. But by last week, what with the Wallace fracas and the meat shortage, some had begun to change their minds.

Almost everybody, Democrats and Republicans alike, conceded that Pennsylvania’s earnest, able Governor Edward Martin would sweep out New Dealing Joe Guffey and that John Bricker would have an easy time in Ohio knocking off Democratic Senator James W. Huffman. Dopesters were also pretty sure that the Democrats would pick up a seat in Kentucky, which now has a Republican Senator only because of an interim appointment by its Republican Governor.

That left nine seats for the G.O.P. to pick up. They would have to do it in 14 states.

New York. The Broadway betting boys put it this way: 6-to-5 either way on Republican Irving Ives or Democrat Herbert Lehman in the Senate contest; but 4-to-1 that Tom Dewey would give Jim Mead a beating in the Governor race. The odds told the story: if Tom Dewey gave Jim Mead a terrific enough thumping, Irving Ives could ride in on the Dewey coattails.

Massachusetts. The campaign had not begun—there was no point trying to interest the voters until Boston got over its World Series (see SPORT). But the key to the election is Boston and its agile Mayor Jim Curley, who dislikes old (73) Senator David Ignatius Walsh almost as much as he does 44-year-old Republican Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. If Jim Curley does not line up Boston’s machine and heavy Catholic vote for jowly Dave Walsh, a Republican trend among independents could easily put Lodge over. In any event, Lodge has a good chance to return to the Senate seat he resigned to go to war.

West Virginia. Last week, John Lewis’ United Mine Workers, a potent factor in all West Virginia elections, withheld endorsement of either Democratic Senator Harley Martin Kilgore (who expected U.M.W. support) or peppery, 42-year-old Navy Veteran Tom Sweeney of Wheeling. Harley Kilgore was worried not so much by absence of the miners’ blessing as by absence of miners’ meat. Smart, energetic Tom Sweeney figured that his chances had risen from 50-to-50 to 52-to-48. The prospect: a hard-run race.

Missouri. A Republican swell is running —for many Missourians are not proud of their native son in the White House. Harry Truman’s appointed successor, hamhanded Senator Frank Briggs, will probably lose to neat, conservative, colorless James P. Kem, unless the Pendergast machine in Kansas City and the P.A.C. in St. Louis can roll up an overwhelming Democratic vote. Briggs’s theme: loyalty to Truman. Kem’s strategy: wham away at controls, left-wingers, Pendergastery.

California. Democrat Will Rogers Jr. had two big campaign assets: 1) the name & fame of his father; 2) the name & fame of James Roosevelt’s father. Jimmy Roosevelt was the magnet for crowds in the small northern towns as he and Will Rogers stumped them last week. Rogers needed the help. He was trying to carry the Wallace foreign policy on one shoulder and the Truman-Byrnes policy on the other. He was cool to the P.A.C.’s support, and there was evidence that the labor vote was sulkily indifferent toward him. Republican Senator William F. Knowland plugged steadily, made six or eight speeches a day, had already covered 38 of the 58 counties. Most politicos agreed that if the election were held this week, Knowland would win.

Delaware. A few weeks ago New Dealing Senator James M. Tunnell thought that his G.O.P. opponent, poultry farmer John J. Williams, would continue to be what the Democrats had labeled him—”the man no one knows.” Williams fooled them. With a vigorous, personal campaign he had forced Democrats to revise their early, cocksure predictions downward. Odds now: 60-to-40 for Tunnell.

Maryland. Two-term Governor Herbert Romulus O’Conor, who gave Senator George L. Radcliffe a sound beating in the Democratic primary, has a smooth-working machine, well-greased by patronage for this election. Governor O’Conor strums an anti-Russia serenade for Baltimore’s big Catholic vote. His Republican opponent, Colonel David John Markey, a poor campaigner himself, will get much-needed help from Baltimore’s popular Mayor Theodore R. McKeldin, now running for Governor. Best bet as of last week: O’Conor.

New Mexico. Democratic Senator Dennis Chavez made enemies when he beat Governor John Dempsey’s machine in the primary. Now state jobholders have been given the word to “vote as you please,” and many consider that a green light to vote for hurly-burly Major General Patrick Jay Hurley. He has a good chance in a closening race.

Wisconsin. Dark, vigorous Republican Joseph R. McCarthy (TIME, Aug. 26) was making the most of his high talent for gladhanding and his opportunity to blame strikes, price muddles and every other postwar difficulty on the Democratic Party. Labor seemed apathetic to Democrat Howard J. McMurray, and Progressives were making little noise in his behalf. The odds heavily favored McCarthy.

Idaho. Leftish Senator Glen (“Cowboy”) Taylor is out beating the brush for squat Attorney-Rancher George Donart. Thus Republican Henry Dworshak is running against two tough campaigners. Four-term Congressman Dworshak has a fair chance in an uphill race.

Washington. Republican Harry P. Cain, former mayor of Tacoma, threw a scare into Democrats by his aggressive speeches. So the Democrats threw Senator Warren Magnuson, their glamor boy and best vote-getter, into the campaign for Senator Hugh B. Mitchell. To raise Cain’s chances, the G.O.P. then opened up its big guns on the liberal side: Harold Stassen and Oregon’s Senator Wayne Morse. Outlook: very close.

Montana. On the theory that most of the 44,000 Democrats who voted for Burton K. Wheeler in the primary would now go Republican, the G.O.P. thought it had a fair chance to win with Zales N. Ecton, a rancher whose chief appeal is “free enterprise.” To almost all others it looked as if Ecton had only a slim hope of beating labor-backed Democrat Leif Erickson.

Wyoming. Two traditions are strong in this state: 1) independence in voting, 2) senatorial persistence in office. But across the land there is another sentiment —throw out the ins—and that worries Democratic Senator Joseph C. O’Mahoney. Harry Henderson, a popular campaigner, is counting on cattlemen’s hatred of price controls to turn them to his Republican side. In the lead now: Joe O’Mahoney.

Nevada. Republican George W. Malone does much of his campaign touring by airplane, drops in on wool ranchers. The ranchers like him and they hate the OPA. But Representative Berkeley Lloyd Bunker rides Senator Pat McCarran’s Democratic machine and is strong in the cities. Dopesters’ odds: 8-to-5 on Berkeley Bunker.

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In short, as of last week, the G.O.P. was far from sure of taking the Senate. But if labor and leftists, sulked, if the vote were light, and if voters generally took out their disgust with Harry Truman on Democratic candidates, then the G.O.P. could be a shoo-in.

* Line-up in the 79th Congress: 56 Democratic Senators, 39 Republicans, 1 Progressive (Robert M. La Follette, who was eliminated in Wisconsin’s primary). Need to control: 49.