National Affairs: WHERE THE POWER LIES

As the election campaign moves into its final month there are mighty few sure votes to be counted. Kennedy commands a native son lead in New England and Democratic loyalties in the Deep South. Nixon can count on the traditionally Republican farm belt. But the battles for the undecided and uncommitted rage through most of the U.S. Both sides agree that the election will be won or lost in the great population states with the big electoral votes. Here is how TIME correspondents saw the battle last week:

Alabama: Unenthusiastically for Kennedy, as for Al Smith and Adlai Stevenson.

Alaska: Sourdoughs are predominantly Democratic and Kennedy’s.

Arizona: A 2½-to-i Democratic margin in registration but the state’s dominant mood is conservative. Nixon.

Arkansas: With Gov. Faubus’ backing, weakly Kennedy.

California-Democrats are ahead 3 to 2 in voter registration, but Nixon leads the polls. Stevenson Democrats in vote-heavy Southern California are lukewarm for Kennedy. The Democratic organization is sundered into half a dozen wings. By contrast, Nixon has crafted an able cadre of workers since 1946, and they have overcome the chaos left by the Knight-Knowland fight for the gubernatorial nomination in 1958. Khrushchev is a big issue, and Cabot Lodge is warmly regarded. On his home grounds, Nixon leads.

Colorado: Both parties well organized and working hard. A tossup.

Connecticut: Democrats are nervous about a big independent small-town registration but Governor Abe Ribicoff, a Kennedy pioneer, should lead a Kennedy victory, especially since Catholics make up 47% of the population.

Delaware: Democrats, though feuding among themselves, are registering new city voters, trying to overhaul an outstate margin that gives Nixon a lead.

Florida: Dade County’s Catholic and Jewish vote should go preponderantly for Kennedy, oldsters for Nixon. Conservative Democrats are only halfheartedly for Kennedy. Nixon has a slight edge in the state that went for Ike in 1952 and 1956. But polls show a whopping 37% undecided. Georgia: Loyally Democratic.

Hawaii: Religion will swing some Catholics to Kennedy, but the powerful Teamsters and Longshoremen are doing nothing for him. Nixon.

Idaho: Nixon.

Illinois: Chicago’s Cook County cradles half the state’s votes, and Mayor Richard Daley’s Democratic machine is purring at peak efficiency. Downstate, the Republican tide is at low ebb. G.O.P. Governor William Stratton, stuck with a scandal-seared administration, split the party by insisting on running for a third term. Traditionally Republican newspapers in Peoria, Moline, Pekin and Rockford have endorsed the Democratic candidate for Governor, Otto Kerner. Republicans say their polls put Nixon ahead 54-46 and Bobby Kennedy groans, “We’re behind.” But Democrats may yet take Illinois.

Indiana: Democrats concede to Nixon.

Iowa: Nixon ahead in this Republican, Protestant country.

Kansas: Republican roots run deep.

Kentucky: Kennedy is gaining from factory layoffs (in farm machinery, appliances) but Catholicism is proving a tough handicap. Slightly Nixon.

Louisiana: French Catholics and Negroes will probably swing back from Ike and tilt the balance for Kennedy.

Maine: Despite recent heavy votes for Democrats at state level, Republican tradition runs deep in presidential years. A standoff.

Maryland: Protestant farmers are being influenced by the religion issue, but so are the big city and suburban Catholics (17% of the population). Even.

Massachusetts: The Boston Red Sox will win baseball’s World Series before Boston’s Kennedy loses Massachusetts.

Michigan: In one of the most strongly unionized states in the land, Walter Reuther’s United Auto Workers are driving hard for Kennedy in the local halls and on the assembly lines, will pay thousands of members to stay away from their jobs and flush out the vote on Election Day. Detroit’s Wayne County is the most heavily Democratic area in the North, and local polls give wide leads to Kennedy among its many Negroes (86% for Kennedy), Jews (80%), Catholics (79%), unskilled laborers (69%), immigrants (63%). But the Republicans are equally strong outstate, and better organized than at any time since World War II, behind Gubernatorial Candidate Paul Bagwell. Outlook: thin edge to Nixon.

Minnesota: Lively, fresh Republican organization cut into Democratic farmer-labor majorities in the primaries, but unemployment in the northern, iron range, a strong Catholic vote in St. Paul, and deep-seated Democratic loyalties in Minneapolis give Kennedy a lead.

Mississippi: Democratic regulars will rebuff Governor Ross Barnett’s independent-electors movement, win by a trimmed majority.

Missouri: Strongly anti-Catholic in rural areas, but Democratic Kansas City and heavily Catholic St. Louis should carry for Kennedy.

Montana: Democratic and strongly unionized. Kennedy.

Nebraska: Republican and Protestant. Nixon.

Nevada: An edge to native-daughter Pat Nixon’s husband.

New Hampshire: Rock-ribbed Republicans cast more primary votes for Nixon in 1960 than for Ike in 1956.

New Jersey: The big city Democratic machines are well organized, well heeled, well manned—and working round the clock to register new voters. Their speakers use the religion issue to stimulate the sympathy of the state’s Catholics (39%), as well as the many Jews and Negroes, who are sensitive to bias and bigotry. (Said Congressman Frank Thompson Jr., leader of the Democrats’ nationwide voter-registration drive, in a speech at a Levittown luncheon fortnight ago: “If they get a Catholic this time, they’ll get a Jew the next time, then a Negro.”) Khrushchev helps the Republicans, and so does the memory of Cabot Lodge just across the river at the U.N. (By contrast, Lyndon Johnson’s name is conspicuously missing from Democratic buttons, posters.) Republicans also expect a lift from the large influx of white-collar conservatives to the bedroom suburbs. Kennedy ahead.

New Mexico: Probably Kennedy.

New York: The biggest state has gone Republican in three straight presidential elections—the last time by 1,500,000 votes. To overcome the upstate Republican bulge, the Democrats need a landslide in New York City—where the “minorities” make up a majority. Biggest bloc: 2,600.000 Roman Catholics. The Jewish population, 2,400,000, has shown little passion for either candidate. Among the Jews spread rumors, since denied, of Father Joe Kennedy’s sympathy to Nazi Germany while he was Ambassador to England on the eve of World War II. Similar rumors spread that in the heat of Nixon’s California senatorial campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas in 1950, he sneered that she was married to Actor Melvyn Douglas, “whose real name is Hesselberg.”* New York’s Negroes (980,000) generally vote Democratic, but Kennedy lost some support among Negro leaders by putting Lyndon Johnson on the ticket, may have won some back now that Harlem’s top politico, Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, is campaigning for him. Nixon gained ground in Harlem by visiting Africa, by praising the Southern sit-ins, and by enlisting ex-Ballplayer Jackie Robinson for his staff. Puerto Ricans number 700,000 in the city, and one of their idols is Spanish-speaking Nelson Rockefeller, who is going all out stumping the state for his onetime rival Nixon. Good polls show a neck-and-neck race, with 25% of the voters undecided. But Kennedy seems to be surging.

North Carolina: Conservatives are trending toward Nixon, but Kennedy narrowed the gap in his recent successful sweep through the state.

North Dakota: Scandinavian, Lutheran, Republican.

Ohio: Democratic Governor Mike DiSalle has temporarily forgotten his pique at the Kennedys (who threatened to demolish him in a primary race unless he played Back-Jack), has put his bulk behind the ticket. Kennedy is strong in the northern industrial cities, but Republicans are strong in the south, where the religion issue is hot. Kennedy leads.

Oklahoma: Democrats are feuding, and the Baptists (425,000 strong) are defecting to Nixon.

Oregon: In a state that has never elected a Catholic to a statewide office, Nixon leads.

Pennsylvania: Democrats hold the lead in voter registration for the first time, and they have an issue: the economy. There are sizable layoffs in the state’s coal, steel and rail industries. Democrats are not letting the people forget that President Eisenhower twice vetoed aid for depressed areas, that Pennsylvania’s Republican senate torpedoed many a welfare bill sponsored by Democratic Governor Dave Lawrence. Democratic Boss Bill Green will deliver Philadelphia to Kennedy, Lawrence will deliver Pittsburgh, and Steelworkers’ Chief Dave McDonald hopes to hand over the union vote. But the Pennsylvania Dutch are suspicious of Kennedy’s Catholicism, and are registering in large numbers for the first time since 1928. The many Poles and Lithuanians warmly remember Dick Nixon’s tough talk to Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow and his triumphal entry into Warsaw. Nixon ran better than Ike did in the primaries. Kennedy collected a large write-in vote, drew enthusiastic crowds while campaigning. Outlook: even, with Kennedy gaining.

Rhode Island: Catholics (58%) are largely Democratic; most of them will endorse Kennedy.

South Carolina: The crack in the Solid South. Segregationists are swinging behind Nixon, the choice of ex-Governor Jimmy Byrnes and the editorialists.

South Dakota: Loyally Republican.

Tennessee: Democrats are pulling together as rarely before (they are even working with Negroes), but Nixon is powerful and popular in the Republican, Protestant, eastern part of the state. Even.

Texas: Democrats comprise upwards of 80% of the electorate. But they fault Jack Kennedy for his liberalism, Catholicism and coziness with union leaders. Fortnight ago, the Texas Democratic convention chucked the party’s national platform in favor of one of its own—which would keep taxes low, federal powers at a minimum, unions and Negroes in their places. The oil millionaires have yet to unloose their purse strings for the Democratic campaign chest (Nixon publicly promised to preserve their 27½% oil-depletion allowance). Of the state’s 1,000,000 adult Baptists, probably 90% will vote against Jack Kennedy. But probably the same percentage of its 400,000 Mexican-American voters will swing back from Eisenhower to their fellow Catholic, Jack Kennedy. Latest statewide polls put Nixon and Kennedy neck and neck, with a big 24% undecided.

Utah: Mormons are generally cool to Catholicism. Nixon.

Vermont: Protestant, Yankee and Republican.

Virginia: With a mistrust of Catholicism and no Kennedy endorsement from Political Patriarch Harry Byrd, Nixon has it.

Washington: Lumbermen and fishermen are bucking an economic slump, and Kennedy has a thin edge.

West Virginia: Miners and mountain people may carry the state for Kennedy because unemployment is a more compelling issue than religion.

Wisconsin: Republicans won 52% of the primary vote, but enough of a bloc vote from the large Catholic population (31%) could put Kennedy across.

Wyoming: For Nixon. _

* B’nai B’rith’s Anti-Defamation League spent five months in 1952 investigating the Melvyn Douglas story, reported that Nixon never said anything of the kind. Says Anti-Defamation League National Chairman Henry Edward Schultz: “Questions have been raised and are likely to continue to be raised about the attitude of Vice President Nixon and Senator Kennedy toward Jews. We believe both men to be wholly free of anti-Semitic bias.”