From sea to shining sea, the map dotted with the diverse domes of the nation's statehouses reflected a disaster for the Republicans. The Democrats scored a net gain of at least four governorships, raising their total to 36,* their highest tally since 1936. In their sweep, the Democrats captured eight of the nation's ten most populous states, including the twin coastal bastions of New York and California, and came close to winning Ohio and Michigan. Next year 73% of all Americans will have Democrats as their Governors.
Perhaps the most important reason for the Democrats' success was nothing more complicated than the fact that the party had generally managed to put forward the most attractive and distinctive candidates in a campaign in which many of the gubernatorial rivals were taking remarkably similar positions. Among the winners were Raul Castro, the first Chicano to be elected in Arizona; Jerry Apodaca, the first Spanish-surnamed candidate to win in New Mexico in 56 years; and Hawaii's George Ariyoshi, the first American of Japanese ancestry to reach a U.S. Governor's mansion.
The Democrats also succeeded far better than the Republicans in selecting candidates who projected the image of being non-politicians at a time when politicians were often scorned.
Profiles of some of the key gubernatorial winners:
MASSACHUSETTS' MICHAEL DUKAKIS, 41, is a new kind of Democratic politician in a state that has seen all breeds and mutations. He is a political technocrat, a bright and self-righteous reformer who declared that upon becoming Governor, "the first thing I'm going to do is to begin to introduce the idea of productivity and efficiency goals and standards into state government." Dukakis spent eight energetic years in the legislature, where he sponsored the nation's first no-fault automobile insurance. Then he burnished his image for two years as the moderator of The Advocates, a program on current issues by the Public Broadcasting Corporation. One obstacle remained: Republican Governor Francis Sargent, 59, a leading member of the slowly vanishing species of liberal Brahmins who have struggled for generations to control the state. Helped by an anti-Republican year in an anti-Republican state, Dukakis took 56% of the vote.
TENNESSEE'S RAY BLANTON, 44, a roughhewn, former Democratic Congressman in the populist tradition, found himself matched against one of the few attractive young Republicans to emerge in 1974: Lamar Alexander, 34, a lawyer who had helped Senator Howard Baker and retiring Governor Winfield Dunn win elections. Alexander's main problem turned out to be general dissatisfaction with Dunn's Republican administration, which had doubled the size of the budget to $2 billion and presented the state's eastern region with a prison instead of the medical school it had wanted. All this, plus a strong Democratic resurgence in what had briefly been a Republican state, was enough to give Blanton the election by a margin of 56% to 44%. But Alexander's future remains bright.