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OHIO'S JAMES A. RHODES, 65, should have lost to Democratic Incumbent John J. Gilligan, 53, by all the laws and lessons of the 1974 election. An old pol who looks as though he had spent his life in smoke-filled rooms, Rhodes was Governor of Ohio from 1963 to 1970, when he largely neglected the state's pressing social problems. Unlike Gilligan, Rhodes refused to disclose his financial records, although LIFE had accused him in 1969 of committing tax irregularities. But for all these advantages, plus a progressive record as Governor, Gilligan turned out to be his own worst enemy. A former college English professor, he projected an air of arrogance, while Rhodes appeared to be a good old boy having a harmless last hurrah. When Gilligan narrowly lost, the Governor manfully admitted: "The election was purely and simply a personal repudiation of me."
MICHIGAN'S WILLIAM G. MILLIKEN, 56, is one incumbent Republican who has no trouble seeming to be a nonpolitician. He comes on as a shy and self-effacing man whom everyone—including the voters—instinctively wants to put at ease. Milliken had the courage, or foresight, to call on Nixon to confess his involvements in Watergate in June 1973. Last week sympathetic voters in Democratic Michigan elected their Governor to a second term by a margin of 52% to 48% over Sander Levin, a liberal state senator who lost in 1970 to the same sure political touch of the same nonpolitician.
CALIFORNIA'S EDMUND G. BROWN JR., 36, barely survived the closing rush of Republican State Controller Houston I. Flournoy, 45, to win, 51% to 49%. For months, Jerry Brown's sharply distinctive style, moderate positions and candor in admitting that he did not have all the answers had made him a strong favorite. Then Flournoy, whose easygoing approach seemed to wear better with the voters as the campaign quickened, began to close the gap at the startling rate of 1% a day. "If we'd had a little more time I think we would have won it," said the deeply disappointed Flournoy, and Brown's camp agreed.
OKLAHOMA'S DAVID L. BOREN, 33, a Democratic populist, took 64% of the tally to rout James Inhofe, a conservative Republican state senator, and climax an astonishing rise to power. A state legislator who taught political science at Oklahoma Baptist University, Boren lacked money and charisma, and an early poll predicted that he would take only 1.5% of the votes in the primary. But Boren, a Rhodes scholar, had just the issue—clean up the government —for a state plagued with scandals, and he had just the sincere, plodding style to put his message across. Brandishing the broom that became his symbol ("Sweep the old guard out"), he won the primary in September and was still accelerating when he demolished Inhofe. At 33, Boren will be the youngest Governor in the nation. "Serving in office is like heading a Red Cross drive," he says. "I've never thought of myself as a politician."
* The Democrats also had a good chance of winning a tight race in Alaska, where the count of absentee ballots was continuing at week's end.