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Nebraska: Republicans Carl Thomas Curtis, 49, and Roman Lee Hruska, 50, had little trouble winning as the state's two Senators. A veteran of 16 years in the House, Curtis is a lackluster conservative. First-Term Congressman Hruska is expected to lend strong, thoughtful support to the Eisenhower program.
Iowa: Republican Thomas Ellsworth Martin, 61, scored the election's big success for the Ezra Benson farm program by upsetting Old Campaigner Guy Gillette. Lawyer Martin waged an energetic but unimaginative campaign, spouting hog-price and corn-hog-ratio quotations across the state. He will move up to the Senate after 16 unspectacular years in the House.
Ohio: Republican George Harrison Bender, 58, was elected for the unexpired term of the late great Robert A. Taft by unseating Senator Tom Burke. Burke, a habitually effortless winner of Cleveland's mayoralty, found bushbeating all over Ohio a chore, while Bender sang and shouted his way through all 88 counties. Burke lost by 9,355 votes. Remembered as cheer leader in the 1948 and 1952 Taft-for-President campaigns, George Bender is boss of the Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) Republican machine and a veteran of 14 years in the House. Long an isolationist, he has hungrily swallowed President Eisenhower's policies, foreign and domestic.
New Jersey: Republican Clifford Case Jr. carved out a razor-thin victory in the face of a strong Democratic attack and McCarthyite desertions. Election night, Case's opponent, Congressman Charles Howell, claimed that he had won. But by morning Howell's early 100,000-vote lead had been wiped out, and the Case-Howell race became a case of cliff-hanging suspense. By next day, as corrections were made and absentee ballots counted, Case's 200-vote margin widened to 3,308, equal to about one-fifth of 1% of the 1,700,000 votes cast.
New Hampshire: Republican Norris Cotton, 54, after eight years in the House, won a promotion to the unexpired term of the late Charles Tobey. He has backed the Administration program down the line, except on public housing and the St. Lawrence Seaway project.
In all, the Democrats won 24 Senate elections, the Republicans 14. Of these, the Democrats re-elected 16 incumbent Senators, including eight from the South and Minnesota's Hubert Humphrey, Montana's James Murray, New Mexico's Clinton Anderson, Delaware's Allen Frear and
Rhode Island's 87-year-old Theodore Green.
The race that had attracted the most nationwide attention turned out to be a clean sweep. Democrat Paul Douglas piled up almost a quarter million more votes than his Republican challenger, Lobbyist Joe Meek. Ex-Professor Douglas' hard campaigning won the votes of many Republican and independent city dwellers, especially in Chicago.
Republicans re-elected six Senators. Among the six: New Hampshire's Styles Bridges, the Senate's president pro tempore, South Dakota's Karl Mundt and Idaho's Henry Dworshak, who swamped Democrat Glen Taylor, Henry Wallace's banjo-playing running mate on 1948's Progressive ticket.
In Massachusetts, lanky Leverett Saltonstall faced trouble from an eager challenger, Democratic State Treasurer Foster Furcolo, but came away an easy winner. Furcolo did well in Boston's Italian neighborhoods, but dropped much of the normally Democratic Irish vote.