Where the Races Are Tough

By William R. Doerner

Republicans around the country try to follow Reagan's lead

As Ronald Reagan solidifies his commanding lead in the presidential race, there is certainly no shortage of G.O.P. candidates around the country who hope to share handsomely if there is a Reagan landslide on Election Day. Many were consciously presenting themselves to voters not just as Republicans but as rock-ribbed and faithful Reaganites. Presidential coattails, however, are often perilous vehicles in state campaigns, which turn more on local and often quirky issues, personalities and voting habits. As the nation's 33 Senate, 435 House and 13 gubernatorial contests moved into the final week, there were still many key races in which Democrats and Republicans were running neck and neck.

While the Democrats seemed unlikely to regain an outright majority in the Senate, which they lost four years ago, they hope to reduce the G.O.P. margin from its present ten seats to as few as one. In the House, the Democrats currently have a 99-seat margin, and Republicans have hopes of whittling that down by as many as 26 seats, which is the number they lost in the 1982 midterm elections. That could re-establish the working majority of Republicans and conservative Democrats that Reagan enjoyed right after his election. It was that ideological marriage of convenience that provided the key congressional support for Reagan's sweeping tax and economic programs in 1981.

The nation's hardest-fought and most publicized contest is for the Senate seat occupied by the dean of the New Right, North Carolina Republican Jesse Helms, 63, who is being challenged by two-term Democratic Governor James Hunt, 47. Their race also is entering the record books as the most expensive U.S. legislative campaign ever, costing at least $20 million, 60% of it spent by Helms. The Senator charges that his opponent would too willingly resort to tax increases as a means of solving Washington's fiscal problems. For his part, Hunt has sought to portray Helms as part of a right-wing clique that includes Moral Majority Leader Jerry Falwell and Texas Oilman Bunker Hunt and is intent on seizing power in the U.S. The most recent poll by the Charlotte Observer showed Hunt with a slight lead, 46% to Helms' 42%.

Nowhere does the Reagan connection play louder or longer than in Texas, where G.O.P. Convert Phil Gramm, 42, and Democratic State Senator Lloyd Doggett, 38, are vying for the seat 3 of retiring Republican Senator John Tower. Gramm, who became a Republican in 1983, wears as a badge of honor his label as a co-author of Reagan's budget and tax-cutting legislation in 1981. He harps on his association with the President so often that Doggett was finally moved to rueful complaint. Said he: "President Reagan's neck is probably a little sore because Phil Gramm has been hanging around it." Their exchanges are not always so mild. When Doggett secretly taped a telephone conversation with his opponent about ending their mutually negative ad campaign in favor of more positive fare, Gramm howled that Doggett had reached "an alltime low in Texas politics." Countered Doggett: "Sometimes when you get in a fight with a skunk, you can't tell who started it." Pollsters rate the contest as close to even.

In Massachusetts, New Rightist Ray Shamie, 63, is banking heavily on long Reagan coattails in his bid for the Senate seat of Paul Tsongas, who is stepping down because of illness. A conservative businessman who unexpectedly overtook the patrician Elliot Richardson to capture the Republican nomination, Shamie has budgeted $1 million for TV ads, compared with less than half that amount allocated by his opponent, Lieutenant Governor John Kerry, 42. One of the spots most frequently repeated is an endorsement of Shamie by Reagan, despite the President's mispronunciation of the G.O.P. candidate's name (the first syllable is pronounced like sham, not shame). Shamie's chances have dimmed in recent weeks, however, with the revelation that a decade ago he had briefly joined the ultraright John Birch Society.

Another Republican in some difficulty in spite of close Reagan attachments is Iowa's Roger Jepsen, 55, who is seeking to become the first incumbent Senator from his state to be returned to office in 18 years. According to a recent Des Moines Register poll, Jepsen now trails his opponent, Congressman Tom Harkin, 44, by 5 points. Jepsen has conducted a lackluster campaign. Harkin was also able to take advantage of Jepsen's admission that he once applied for membership in a sex club. Harkin's slogan: "Tom Harkin, a Senator Iowans can be proud of."

In Illinois, Republican Senator Charles Percy, 65, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has managed to hold on to a narrow but consistent lead over Challenger Paul Simon, 55, a five-term Congressman from downstate. A mid-October poll by the Chicago Sun-Times gave Percy a 49%-to-42% edge and showed that despite the Senator's recent tilt rightward, he pulled 18% of the black vote. In an effort to draw attention to that shift, Simon has taken to calling Percy the "flipflop Senator," and accuses him of being willing to take any position needed to get reelected. Percy retorts that Simon has a liberal voting record that is out of step with Illinois voters and supports tax increases even larger than those proposed by Mondale. Simon could conceivably close the gap by Election Day, especially if Chicago Mayor Harold Washington persuades newly registered blacks to vote for him in large numbers.

In seeking to recoup their 1982 losses in the House of Representatives, the Republicans have concentrated on the South and Southwest, targeting six Democratic seats in Texas alone. G.O.P. strategists have grown pessimistic about unseating what had been their No. 1 target, Oklahoma's James Jones, 45, who as chairman of the House Budget Committee has enraged Reaganauts by consistently proposing Democratic budgets with lower deficits than the ones proposed by the President. Armed with the biggest chunk of political action committee funds among House members, Jones has apparently beaten back the challenge of former U.S. Attorney Frank Keating, 40.

Incumbency is proving to be a difficult obstacle for other challengers in closely watched House races. In Delaware, Democrat Tom Carper, 37, is running even with his well-financed opponent, Elise du Pont, 48, wife of the state's outgoing Governor and chemical fortune heir. Last week Carper won the endorsement of the state's two dailies, the Wilmington News-Journal and the Delaware State News. In New York, Republican Bill Green, 55, continues to hold a lead over brash Democratic Challenger Andrew Stein, 39, in the race to represent Manhattan's prestigious silk-stocking district, though both sides acknowledge that the gap is narrowing. In Mississippi's Delta second district, where State Legislator Robert G. Clark, 55, is making his second try to become the state's first black Congressman in 100 years, Republican Webb Franklin, 42, is using to marked effect TV spots emphasizing his service to both black and white constituents.

There are relatively few high-profile gubernatorial races in 1984, in part because only 13 states are picking a chief executive and most incumbents running for re-election are safe. One who is not, however, is Washington's John Spellman, 57, a Republican. In that state's nonpartisan primary in September, so many Republicans crossed over to vote for Democrat Booth Gardner, 48, the little-known chief executive of Pierce County, that the bland, cautious Spellman wound up with a mere 27% of the total vote. The latest polls show Gardner, a crisp administrator with a Harvard M.B.A., running 17% ahead of Spellman. The Governor has taken to shrill attacks on his opponent, charging Gardner with being a "shill of labor" who left his county "a shambles."

The Republicans, who now control only 15 of the nation's statehouses, will probably add one more to their column in Utah, where popular Democratic Governor Scott Matheson is resigning. State Speaker of the House Norman Bangerter, 51, a Republican, has been running about 10 points ahead of Democrat Wayne Owens, 47, a former Congressman. Owens has been reduced to pleading for votes as a check on the G.O.P.'s possession of every top elective job in the state. In Missouri, where the incumbent is ineligible to run again, Republican Attorney General John Ashcroft, 42, is locked in a close contest with Lieutenant Governor Kenneth Rothman, 49.

None of this is coming cheap. Common Cause, the nonpartisan public-interest lobby, published studies last week showing that the combined cost of this year's Senate and House races alone will come to slightly more than $250 million, or an average of somewhat over $3.4 million for each Senate race and about $300,000 per House contest. Moreover, according to the Federal Election Commission, contenders for the Senate are spending about twice as much this year as they did six years ago, when the same seats were last contested.

--By William R. Doerner.

Reported by Neil MacNeil/Washington and Christopher Ogden/Chicago, with other bureaus

With reporting by Neil MacNeil, Christopher Ogden