The Democratic Senate

The Republican Senate dropped stone-cold dead in the electoral market three days ago, and nobody paid it much mind more exciting things were going on. Even before Tuesday, the GOP 51 to 45 Senatorial margin was pretty clearly in for a slice, if not obliteration. It was obliterated, all right, for not only did the Democratic Party hold all of its own seats, but it knocked off nine held by the Republicans. The new Senate line-up is a fat 54 to 42 for the President's party.

For the most part, the Democrat won by large majorities, and produced some astounding surprises. Paul Douglas, a through-going internationalist, beat the Illinois veteran, Senator Curley Brooks, an equally thorough-going isolationist. Deleware's Senator Buck was upset, and in Idaho, conservative Senator Dworshak was edged out.

Besides these three coups, Democrats won all the races that were figured as "close." In Minnesota, Hubert Humphrey walloped Senator Joe Ball; Conservative Democrats Virgil Chapman and Guy Gillette defeated GOP incumbents in Kentucky and Iowa, respectively; and Robert Kerr easily out-distanced Ross Rizley in Oklahoma.

Matthew Necley, championed by John L. Lewis and unions in general, bad an easy evening piling up votes over West Virginia's arch-conservative Senator, Chapman Revercomb, who had been left to lurch for himself by Republican chieftains. Senator Robertson of Wyoming lost out to Democrat Lester Hunt, whose sprightly campaign--contrasted with the pedestrian tactics of his opponent--was typical of many of the Democratic victories.

Some notable GOP Senators managed to hand on to their chairs. Leverett Saltonstall stood firmly against the Massachusetts whirlwind, and Homer Ferguson successfully resisted the kind of assault in Michigan that ousted Republican Governor Kim Sigler. Other Republicans were safe in densely-GOP states; Bridges in New Hampshire, and Wherry in Nebraska, for example.

The new Democratic majority will be a far more liberal body than the recent group of Southerners which was sprinkled with New Deal remnants. Besides the replacement of several Republicans with sides the replacement of several Republicans with moderate or progressive Democrats, CIO-supported Lyndon Johnson has Lee O'Daniel's Texas seat, and Estes Kefauver whipped the Crump machine in Tennessee this summer as well as the Republicans this week. Democratic mossbacks are still to be reckoned with, but their influence has suffered considerably from the Republican debacle.