U.S. Elections Worry The Republicans

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28728, 28 October 1958, Page 14

U.S. Elections Worry The Republicans

[Specially written far N.Z.P.A. by FRANK OLIVER.] WASHINGTON, October 20. On November 4 about 105 million Americans will be entitled to vote to say who they want for their State Governors, their Congressmen and their Senators. This vast electorate is from a population which has now topped 175 million people. Everybody is trying to guess the results but it obviously is a hazardous affair when one realises that in the six years President Eisenhower has been in office the population has increased by 20 million people.

This means that the electorate has increased by at least 10 million since the first smashing Eisenhower victory. In spite of the difficulties the pollsters have been remarkably busy trying to forecast the results. The known facts are that there are many more registered Democrats and Republicans. Pollsters ring doorbells, approach men at work and women in the kitchen, or the supermarket, in all parts of the country and then retire with calculators and slide rules to figure out the results.

The findings are interesting. The forecast is that of those who go to the polls 60 per cent, will vote Democratic and 40 per cent. Republican. This is regarded by most people as somewhat startling.

In a Presidential election year not much more than 50 per cent, of the vote is enough for victory and 55 per cent, usually means that victory is almost in the landslide class. Thus a 60 per cent, vote for the Democrats could mean an overwhelming victory.

What is interesting is that the recent polls agree almost exactly with one taken in midsummer. Then the figures were also 60 for the Democrats and 40 for the Republicans and the pollsters found the leading election issue was the recession and its attendant ills.

The recent poll shows the figures unaltered although those polled agree that the chief election issue now is foreign policy. This means of course (if the polls are correct) that a majority will vote for the Democrats regardless of the issues. They want a change and do not much care whether the principal issue is the price of good or the future of Quemoy. Thus it is easy to see why the Republicans are, in private, rather discouraged. Even if the polls are in error by 10 per cent, the figures still add up to a Democratic victory and if the tide is running that way it may well run for another two years and make reasonably certain a Democratic President in 1960. President’s Popularity

Pollsters have- also been asking questions about the President, his popularity and his “pulling power” with the electorate. This is important because President Eisenhower is the first President affected by the so-called Republican “lame duck” amendment to the Constitution which forbids any man more than two successive terms in the Presidency. Because he is forbidden to seek a third term, a President must see his political influence slide downhill during his second term. The polls now show that the President’s personal popularity stands up reasonably well but that his political influence is small and that he is unlikely to shift many votes by the strenuous speaking campaign he has undertaken. The indications are that people like the President personally but not his party, something already apparent in 1956 when he won a handsome personal victory in the Presidency but his party lost both Houses of Congress. The voters have separated him from the institution of which he is the head—his party. One of his themes is that the has kept the peace and the reaction of the voters seems to be, “That’s fine. Go on looking after the peace and we will elect a Congress that will take care of unemployment, housing, education and prices.’’ President Eisenhower’s invasion of the California election campaign does not seem to have done

his party much good. The main issue there, insisted upon by Senator Knowland, is a “right to work” law which means abolition of the closed shop. There was nothing the President could do about that. Senator Knowland, trying for the Governorship, is for the right to work law. His Democratic opponent is against it. But, and here’s the rub, the Republican candidate for the Senate in California, Governor Knight, is also against the right to work law and there was nothing the President could do to heal the breach between Senator Knowland and Governor Knight. It is reported from California that many Republicans regret that the President has committed his prestige to the California campaign which, most people are certain, will go against his party. It is widely accepted that Senator Knowland will fail and that the Republicans will also lose a California Senate seat. Indeed all over the country there is a feeling that the President cannot change the election result and that he is touring the country campaigning against the very people he will have to co-operate with in Congress during the last two years of his term. The feeling is that he would have done better to stay in Washington, await the result and then without campaign scars get to work with a Democratic Congress next January. Granted a Democratic victory, the Congress of 1959 will not be like the last one. It will be considerably more liberal in flavour. Several very conservative senators are not running at all and some of those who are do not seem likely to win. There are bound to be many new faces in Congress next year and that body will be without a number of ultra-conservatives who have, during the last six years, worked influentially against a good deal of legislation initiated by the President. Thus there has been seen lately, the President of the United States campaigning against a party much more likely to give him the legislation he has wanted for six years than the Congress which ends with 1958.