Who would control the new Senate? Republicans, in the minority for 13 years, needed a net gain of ten seats to take over.* To many a practiced politico, this had seemed like an insuperable obstacle. But by last week, what with the Wallace fracas and the meat shortage, some had begun to change their minds.
Almost everybody, Democrats and Republicans alike, conceded that Pennsylvania's earnest, able Governor Edward Martin would sweep out New Dealing Joe Guffey and that John Bricker would have an easy time in Ohio knocking off Democratic Senator James W. Huffman. Dopesters were also pretty sure that the Democrats would pick up a seat in Kentucky, which now has a Republican Senator only because of an interim appointment by its Republican Governor.
That left nine seats for the G.O.P. to pick up. They would have to do it in 14 states.
New York. The Broadway betting boys put it this way: 6-to-5 either way on Republican Irving Ives or Democrat Herbert Lehman in the Senate contest; but 4-to-1 that Tom Dewey would give Jim Mead a beating in the Governor race. The odds told the story: if Tom Dewey gave Jim Mead a terrific enough thumping, Irving Ives could ride in on the Dewey coattails.
Massachusetts. The campaign had not begun—there was no point trying to interest the voters until Boston got over its World Series (see SPORT). But the key to the election is Boston and its agile Mayor Jim Curley, who dislikes old (73) Senator David Ignatius Walsh almost as much as he does 44-year-old Republican Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. If Jim Curley does not line up Boston's machine and heavy Catholic vote for jowly Dave Walsh, a Republican trend among independents could easily put Lodge over. In any event, Lodge has a good chance to return to the Senate seat he resigned to go to war.
West Virginia. Last week, John Lewis' United Mine Workers, a potent factor in all West Virginia elections, withheld endorsement of either Democratic Senator Harley Martin Kilgore (who expected U.M.W. support) or peppery, 42-year-old Navy Veteran Tom Sweeney of Wheeling. Harley Kilgore was worried not so much by absence of the miners' blessing as by absence of miners' meat. Smart, energetic Tom Sweeney figured that his chances had risen from 50-to-50 to 52-to-48. The prospect: a hard-run race.
Missouri. A Republican swell is running —for many Missourians are not proud of their native son in the White House. Harry Truman's appointed successor, hamhanded Senator Frank Briggs, will probably lose to neat, conservative, colorless James P. Kem, unless the Pendergast machine in Kansas City and the P.A.C. in St. Louis can roll up an overwhelming Democratic vote. Briggs's theme: loyalty to Truman. Kem's strategy: wham away at controls, left-wingers, Pendergastery.