PUBLIC OPINION FAVOURS DEWEY FOR PRESIDENCY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26905, 18 October 1948, Page 5

PUBLIC OPINION FAVOURS DEWEY FOR PRESIDENCY

N.Z.P.A.—Copyright. Rec. 9 p.m. NEW YORK, Oct. 16. Seventeen days before the election public opinion polls are unanimously declaring Mr Thomas Dewey will win the Presidency by a substantial majority, and that the Republicans will retain at least the House and possibly the Senate, too. Reporters accompanying Mr Truman and Mr Dewey on their campaign tours almost without exception say that Mr Dewey is certain to be the next President by a comfortable margin, and that the crowds Mr Truman has drawn have been attracted only by the fact that he is the. President, and are not an indication of the vote he will receive. Mr Truman himself is supremely confident. He has hammered away at Mr Dewey and the notorious donothing eightieth Congress,” and has approached his audiences in a friendly easy-going manner, with no regard for rhetoric or showmanship. Mr Dewey, on the contrary, 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. With the Presidency and the House result 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 which—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 the Republicans admit it will

be a close race. Of the 32 Senate seats to be filled this election, the Republicans now hold 17 and the Democrats 15, and the concensus of opinion is that 12 seats—B Republican and 4 Democratic—may change hands. Mr Truman 1 and Mr Dewey on their last lours threw their weight 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.