Helms stays, Percy goes, and youthful newcomers march in
For downcast Democrats, the results of Senate races provided the one swath of cheerful news. The party did not regain the majority control it lost in 1980, but the power has shifted a solid bit its way. The net gain of two seats will reduce the G.O.P. majority to 53 to 47. Moreover, the ideological tilt will be even greater than the simple partisan tally indicates, since the two lost Republican seats are going, in effect, to liberal Democrats. Because of the shift, the Senate is more likely to slip back under Democratic sway in 1986, when almost twice as many Republicans as Democrats will be running for reelection. The results also showed the rise to power of a new generation. Three of the five freshman Democratic Senators—John Kerry of Massachusetts, Tom Harkin of Iowa and Albert Gore Jr. of Tennessee—are Viet Nam veterans.
This was a good year to be an incumbent, and only three of the 29 Senators running for re-election were defeated. A few others had to fight. James Exon, 63, the Nebraska Democrat, won a tough race against Nancy Hoch, 48, an earnest, moderate Republican and one of nine women who challenged incumbents—all unsuccessfully. Contesting an open seat in Texas, Republican Phil Gramm, 42, badly beat Liberal Lloyd Doggett, 38.
Of the surviving incumbents, the most scrutinized was Jesse Helms. No major American political figure arouses stronger feelings than Helms, 63. Millions of Americans reject his ferocious New Right ideology, while millions of others share his many resentments—of Government, of feminism, blacks and modern life itself. At home in North Carolina, Helms' antagonists were in the minority: he was re-elected to his third Senate term against Moderate James B. Hunt Jr., 47, the state's outgoing Governor, with 53% of the vote.
The election concerned the Senate only nominally. Both sides cast the race as a stark moral referendum. Helms called his right-wing philosophy "the cause of a Christian nation." Hunt described the race as "a historic chance to say what kind of people we are" and spoke darkly of the "radical right wing" that a Helms triumph would encourage to "take over this country." As Hunt politicked Tuesday night at a Raleigh polling place, he had a final, frustrating, emblematic campaign encounter. A young woman declined to shake his hand. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I'm a Christian, and I'm voting for your opposition." As she walked away, Hunt cried out, "You don't think anyone else is a Christian?"