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THE WEST. Rancher Bruce King, who also heads a butane company, won the New Mexico governorship from Republican Pete Domenici largely on the strength of superior experience: King was speaker of the state house of representatives and president of the state's constitutional convention last year, while Domenici had only a middling record as head of the Albuquerque city commission to offer.
In Nevada, Democrat Mike O'Callaghan and Republican Ed Fike both took a hard line on crime and campus disturbances. It did not hurt O'Callaghan, a former schoolteacher, that the Republicans bungled a rebuttal to Columnist Jack Anderson's charges that Fike had taken part in shady land deals.
The only race where ecology turned into the clearest political issue was in Idaho. Cecil Andrus, 38, a Boise insurance executive, became the first Democrat elected Governor of the state since 1944. He defeated Incumbent Don Samuelson partly by opposing a Samuelson-backed mining development proposed for Idaho's scenic White Clouds region.