Democrats Expect To Gain In Congress

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30586, 31 October 1964, Page 17

Democrats Expect To Gain In Congress

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter) WASHINGTON. United States voters will choose a new Congress as well as a President when they go to the polls on November 3 and the outcome will be of major importance to the winner of the Presidential stakes.

An unusually large number of close contests is being waged for seats in the Senate and the House of Representatives, with the campaigning linked to the issues and personalities of the Presidential battle. President Johnson hopes his Democratic party can increase its existing majorities in both chambers, thus giving him more flexibility in pushing his legislative programme through Congress. For Senator Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee, there appears only a theoretical possibility of gaining control of either or both Houses, but his supporters believe that the Republicans can cut into the Democratic margins. In this Presidential election year, every one of the 435 House of Representatives seats will be at stake. Two years ago, in the last Congressional election, the Democrats won 259 to the Republicans’ 176.

Members of the 100-seat Senate, on the other hand, are elected for six-year terms. Only 35 seats are therefore being contested. In the present Senate, there are 66 Democrats and 34 Republicans.

The Democrats say quite frankly that many of their candidates are “riding on the coat-tails” of President Johnson. These are banking heavily on his victory by a landslide to carry them through. Thus, although 26 of the 35 Senate seats to be filled on November 3 are at present held by Democrats, compared with nine by Republicans, Democratic leaders are not concerned. Mathematically, the odds would favour Republican gains, but President Johnson’s great popularity and intense campaigning are said to have improved the prospects of his party actually picking up three or four seats. By contrast, Republican talk of gaining as many as 12 new Senate seats has diminished as the campaign has progressed. Instead of individual Senate candidates depending on Senator Goldwater’s coat-tails, it has been working the other way in some areas with the Republican Presidential nominee bidding for the support of moderate Republicans to help his own cause.

This has been the case in New York, where the incumbent, Senator Kenneth Keating, has dissociated himself from the Goldwater candidacy—although Mr Goldwater has held out the olive branch and arged a “vote fop Keating.” Senator Keating is engaged in an intense struggle against Mr Robert Kennedy, brother of the late President, who came from outside New York to issue the challenge on behalf of the Democrats. Mr Keating, as a liberal Republican, wants no part in the Goldwater conservatism.

Mr Kennedy, who is 38, in troduced a new element into this and possibly future elections when, as a registered voter in Massachusetts, a resident of Virginia and a worker in the Federal capital, Washington, he went into another state to battle a sitting senator. Should Mr Kennedy succeed against the 64-year-old Senator Keating—and the magic of the Kennedy name suggests that he might—a precedent would be created under which attractive young personalities from any part of the United States could be nominated in efforts to unseat older members of the Senate or House. While the New York contest has aroused nation-wide interest, close attention will also be paid to the Senate

race in California, where an old White House association is being played up. There, Mr Pierre Salinger, the 38-year-old former press secretary to President Kennedy and President John, son, has been filling out the term of a deceased Democratic Senator and is now seeking election in his own right. Opposing him is Mr George Murphy, a 62-year-old former Hollywood actor, who represents the conservative Republican viewpoint National issues are likely to have greater influence than usual on final Congressional outcome. Ordinarily, neither national nor international affairs are as important as such things as the attitude of individual candidates to local or regional questions. But this time, Senator Goldwater’s belief in less Federal Government control and more states’ rights has raised an issue on which most candidates have had to take a stand. The extent to which they identify themselves with his philosophy or remain aloof from it may be decisive in many cases. In the South, and some adjoining states’ the racial issue is the main factor, and Senator Goldwater’s stand against the Civil Rights Bill could help some Republican candidates in the traditionally Democratic south. Whatever happens in the Presidential election, however, the odds seem against the Republicans making any great inroads. And, if President Johnson should win by 10 per cent or more, as public opinions polls suggest, the Democrats will probably pick up seats in both the Senate and the House.