Elections Reflect Nation's Uneasy Mood

While the big news of last night was the dramatic come-from-behind victory of appointed Sen. Harris Woffard over former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh in Pennsylvania, the results of several other races across the country signaled the mood of the nation.

Washington state voted on imposing term limits designed to curtail the careers of House Speaker Tom Foley, other members of Congress and state officials. It voted, as well, on a first-in-the-nation plan to legalize doctor-assisted suicide for the terminally ill.

Early returns showed 56 percent Washington state residents endorsing strict term limits that would throw all eight of its congressmen out of office by 1994.

With 6 percent of the votes counted, the state split 50-50 on a measure that would make Washington the only jurisdiction in the world legally sanctioning euthanasia.

Gubernatorial Races

Democratic Lt. Gov. Brereton Jones was elected governor of Kentucky in off-year balloting.

Republican Kirk Fordice held a slim, steady lead over Gov. Ray Mabus in Mississippi, in a surprisingly strong bid to become the state's first GOP governor in more than a century.

In Kentucky, Jones was gaining 65 percent of the vote, to 35 percent for his Republican rival, Rep. Larry Hopkins, with 99 percent of the precincts tallied. The victory by Jones, a former West Virginia Republican, extended a 24-year Democratic hold on the governor's office.

In Mississippi, it was Fordice with 282,784 or 50 percent, to Mabus' 269,898 or 48 percent, with 81 percent of the vote tallied.

Independent Shawn O'Hara had the balance. The heavily Democratic state House picks a winner in January if no candidate gains a majority.

Tinged With Race

The Mississippi campaign was tinged with race. Fordice, 57, said he opposed racial quotas, pushed a voucher system that would allow a choice of schools, favored workfare and not welfare and in one survey said he favored repealing the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Mabus counted on strong support from black voters, who make up about a third of the state's estimated 1.6 million registered voters. He depicted Fordice as an outsider and former lobbyist who didn't understand the state's needs and wouldn't make education his top priority.

Republican state legislator George Allen was elected to the House from Virginia. He led Democrat Kay Slaughter, 63 percent to 34 percent, with 82 percent of the votes tallied. Allen, the son of the late football coach, replaces retiring Republican D. French Slaughter, Kay Slaughter's cousin.

In the other House race on the ballot, Democrat Lucien Blackwell won a four-way race to succeed former Rep. William Gray III in Philadelphia, gaining more than 40 percent of the vote.

Republicans seized control of both houses of the New Jersey legislature in a campaign that became a referendum on the $2.8 billion tax increase that Gov. James Florio won last year.

Democrat Ed Rendell was elected mayor of Philadelphia, succeeding outgoing W. Wilson Goode.

In Indianapolis, former prosecutor Stephen Goldsmith, a Republican, swept to victory in his race to succeed outgoing four-term Mayor William Hudnut III.

Kurt Schmoke won his second term as Baltimore's mayor.

But Kathy Whitmire trailed wealthy developer Bob Lanier and state Rep. Sylvester Turner in her bid for a fifth term in Houston in a race in which the poor local economy was an issue. The two top vote getters would be forced into a runoff.

Waterbury, Conn., had a mayoral race with the twist. Former Democratic Mayor Edward D. Bergin, acquitted in April on state bribery charges, ousted three-term GOP Mayor Joseph J. Santopietro, who faces 21 criminal charges.

Assault Weapons

Washington D.C. voters voted overwhelming to make manufacturers and sellers of certain assault weapons liable for damage caused by their use. The city struggles perpetually with violent crime.

Texans approved a statewide lottery.

Local term limitation measures were on the ballot in Houston, Cincinnati, Worcester, Mass., and White Plains, N.Y., as supporters sought to tap into voter discontent with incumbents at all levels of government.

But the one in Washington state drew most of the attention.

If approved by the voters and sustained in court, it would require the state's entire House delegation to retire in 1994, including Foley, a Democrat first elected in 1964.

The term-limit issue in Washington shaped up as a harbinger of future campaigns, as well.

Coinciding with adverse publicity about bounced checks and unpaid restaurant tabs, it opened Foley and other members of the state's congressional delegation to ridicule if not defeat.

Proponents said the broad issue of term limits, endorsed by voters in California, Colorado and Oklahoma, could resurface on as many as 15 to 20 statewide ballots next year--with the support of Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle.

Opponents called it unconstitutional, and said the campaign was financed by right-wing activists. Foley called it an "arrogant insult" to the voters.

But even opponents conceded its popularity in advance, and noted it provided Republicans with a way to make strong inroads to the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.

Officials said in advance that Mabus faced a tougher race in Mississippi than the Democratic candidate normally has. The state has two Republican senators and is reliably Republican in presidential races.

Hopkins sought to raise questions about Jones' personal finances in his effort to wrest the Kentucky governorship from Democrats. But his campaign was damaged when his name turned up on a list of lawmakers who had bounced checks at the House bank, and he conceded his overdrafts ran to 32 checks totaling $4,035 for the 12 months ending June 30.