U.S. ELECTION PROSPECTS FAVOUR REPUBLICANS

Grey River Argus, 19 October 1948, Page 3

U.S. ELECTION PROSPECTS FAVOUR REPUBLICANS

But Senate Control is 'in Doubt NEW YORK, Oct. 17 Seventeen days before the American general election, public opinici. polls are unanimously declaring tha. Mr Thomas E. Dewey, Republican Party candidate, will win the Presidency by a substantial majority, and that Republicans will retain a majority in at least the House of Representatives, and possibly in the Senate too.

Reporters accompanying President Truman (Democratic candidate) and Mr Dewey on their campaign tours, almost without exception say Mr Dewey is certain to be the next President by a comfortable margin. They say that the crowds Mr Truman has drawn have been attracted only by the fact that he is President, and are not an indication of the vote he will receive.

Mi’ Dewey has conducted one of the most studied campaigns in American history. His manner has been urbane, his entrances and exits carefully timed, and his theme has been unity. His strategy has apparently been to hold votes, and not to risk losing them by specific commitments. DEWEY'S POLICY

“If Mr Thomas Dewey becomes President, and continues to attach the same importance to Western European federation as he professes now, a clash with Britain is inevitable,” says Herbert Matthews, London correspondent ox the New YorK Times. “To federate Britain and Western Europe into ‘one strong economic and political unit,’ as Mr Dewey suggested ip a recent speech, would destroy the Commonwealth, and neither Britain nor the Dominions, would accept such .a destruction. The British Commonwealth is in a transition stage, in which great strains and stresses threaten a structure that is uniaue in history. Yet, even when all the weaknesses are granted, there is much that remains—so much, in fact, that the Empire statesmen now conferring in London are elated and confident, not downcast. The British Commonwealth may be loose, clumsy, and even vague, but it works surprisingly well, as the present conference proves.”

CONGESSIONAL ELECTIONS With the results in the elections for the Presidency and the House a foregone conclusion, political interest centres around the fight for control of the Senate, where there are now 51 Republicans and 45 Democrats, one of whom —Senator Glen Taylor, of Idaho —now supports Mr Henry Wallace’s Progressive Party. The Democrats need to gain only four Republican seats to control the Senate, and even Republicans admit that it will be a close race. Of 32 Senate seats to be filled at this election, the Republicans now hold 17 and the Democrats 15. The consensus of opinion is that 12 seats —eight Republican and four Democrat —may change hands. Mr Truman and Mr Dewey on their last tours .threw their weights into five of the doubtful Senate seats —lllinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, Oklahoma and ’ West Virginia. Other doubtful seats are Colorado, lowa, Michigan, Montana, New Mexico, Tennessee, and Wyoming.