Stocking the Farm System

Nowhere did the Democratic triumph so approach land slide proportions as in the balloting for state legislatures. The Democrats won both houses in 36 states, an increase of eight over 1972 and their highest tally since 1936. Going into the election, the Republicans controlled both houses in 16 states; the total was four when the voting was done -- Vermont, North Dakota, Kansas and Idaho.

What is more, the Democrats won the gubernatorial elections in 27 of the 36 states in which they gained control of both houses. Thus the party leadership in those states should, in theory at least, have little trouble putting through their legislative programs. In addition, the Democratic legislatures will surely be tempted to redistrict their states at the expense of the G.O.P., setting patterns for future elections. And, since state legislatures are traditionally the training ground for young politicians, the Democrats will have a richly stocked farm system of future talent.

Some of the election results made even the Democrats blink. In Wisconsin they took the state senate for the first time since 1893. In Illinois they control both houses for the first time in 36 years, in Ohio for the first time in 15 years. At times it seemed as though any Democrat could beat any Republican. In Illinois an obscure civil servant named Robert T. Lane defeated Jack Walker, a former speaker of the house. W. Robert Blair, the present speaker of the Illinois house and a man who had been mentioned as a gubernatorial candidate in 1976, went down to defeat in a traditionally Republican district.

In Connecticut, a 93-to-58 Republican advantage in the house suddenly became a mirror-image 93-to-58 Democratic majority. In Maine, once rock-ribbed Republican, the Democrats won domination of the house, 88 to 23. In the Massachusetts senate, the Democrats rolled up better than a 4-to-1 margin. Democrat William Owens, a former inmate of the Walpole State Prison, became the first black to be elected to the Massachusetts Senate.

In California the Democratic candidates generally did far better than Governor-elect Jerry Brown. Their 55-to-25 advantage in the house is the biggest since 1883. The Democrats also carried the senate, 25 to 14, thus giving the new Governor a receptive legislature for his programs.

The Republicans were also battered throughout the South, but nowhere more severely than in North Carolina. Before Tuesday's debacle, the G.O.P. held 15 of the 50 seats in the senate. Now they have one. A political observer in the state explained that the Democrats had urged the voters "to return North Carolina to the party of your fathers," and that, thanks to Watergate and inflation, they did--at least for the next two years.

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