Unclear National Returns

Off years on the election circuit are ordinarily dull routines. Last Tuesday's elections were no different, but many political observers were watching what appeared would be the first test of Watergate's impact on the Republican Party and on American voting patterns.

And yet not much can be said about the effect Watergate has had on the American voter's mentality or the party, which has ardently spent the past year attempting to dissociate itself with the dubious practices of Nixon's re-election campaign.

Two states had important guber-natorial contests. In New Jersey, Democrat Brendan T. Byrne lived up to pre-election predictions in swamping Rep. Charles W. Sandman by a two-to-one margin. Sandman got only the most nominal endorsement from incumbent Gov. William T. Cahill, whom he defeated in the Republican primary and no support whatsoever from Republican Sen. Clifford Case. In Virginia, Republican Miles E. Godwin edged liberal independent Henry E. Howell by less than one percentage point.

Meanwhile, Democrat Abraham Beame decisively won the four-way New York mayoralty race with more than 50 per cent of the vote. In Detroit, black State Rep. Coleman A. Young squeezed past an ex-police commissioner in a campaign that centered on the law-and-order issue. In Cleveland, the Republican Party held onto its mayor after a bizarre sequence of pre-election events concerning the Democratic candidate. In Minneapolis, the liberal Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidate upset the city's two-term conservative Republican incumbent.