Nation: Revolt in the Midwest

Incumbents are unexpectedly underdogs in three election battles

Anyone who says he knows what's going on this year doesn't know what he's talking about." So said Minnesota Republican Campaign Strategist Vin Weber last week. He was assessing his own state's topsy-turvy politics, but his comment could be applied equally well to races elsewhere. Suddenly the power of incumbency—long an axiom of American politics—no longer seems to apply. Nowhere is this clearer than in the Midwest, where revolts by voters threaten to turn three veteran politicians out of office:

MINNESOTA. Democrat Wendell Anderson, 45, was a popular Governor from 1971 to 1976, but then...

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