The Mixture As Before

Even if Richard Nixon had won by a landslide, the Democrats could not have lost control of the Senate in 1961. To win a Senate majority, the Republicans would have been obliged to take 28 of the 34 seats at stake this year, including several in the South. So far as the Senate was concerned, the people did not think it was time for a change.

What the voters wanted was the mixture as before. It was a good year for senatorial incumbents. The only sitting candidate turned out was Delaware's J. Allen Frear Jr., a conservative Democrat. In half a dozen states, voters split their tickets with careful intent to return the familiar faces, whether Republican or Democratic. The South predictably held firm for its ten Democratic senatorial candidates. The Republicans seemed likely to increase their Senate strength slightly, but only a handful of noteworthy newcomers will be mingling with the old pros (see box) in the new Senate. Among the winners:

¶ In Colorado, Republican Incumbent Gordon Allott rode Nixon's coattails to a second-term victory over Trumanish Democrat (and lieutenant governor) Robert Lee Knous.

¶ In the first Senate race between two women in U.S. history, Margaret Chase Smith, Maine's ranking vote-collector, easily defeated Lucia Marie Cormier, ex-schoolteacher and Democratic leader of the state legislature. Majestically ignoring Democrat Cormier after paying her one ladylike compliment early in the campaign, Republican Smith relied on the record she has embroidered since 1940, stitched an impressive 5-3 majority.

¶ In Delaware, Republican Governor J. Caleb Boggs pulled off one of the rare upsets of the 1960 Senate races by unseating conservative Democrat J. Allen Frear Jr., 57, a veteran of two undistinguished Senate terms. The only top-of-the-ticket Republican to win in Delaware, Boggs has long wooed Delaware's labor vote by urging establishment of a state department of labor, as a result probably came away with more union votes than Businessman Frear.

¶ Idaho Republican Henry Dworshak, locally renowned for his firm stand against foreign aid, defeated Democrat Robert McLaughlin, a lawyer from Mountain Home.

¶ In Illinois, white-thatched New Deal Democrat Paul Douglas, 68, bettered his 1954 majority, overwhelmed Republican Lawyer Samuel Witwer to win his third term in the Senate.

¶ In New Mexico, despite a presidential vote that seesawed back and forth, Democrat Clinton P. Anderson, 65, onetime Secretary of Agriculture under Harry Truman, handily beat out conservative Republican William Colwes to win his third term in the Senate.

¶ Incumbent John Sherman Cooper, Kentucky's courtly Mr. Republican, won a thunderous victory over Democrat Keen Johnson, who came out of the business world (vice president of Reynolds Metals) to run on a record logged during a single term as state Governor 17 years ago.

¶ Running on a record as flat as the prairies. Kansas' Incumbent Andrew Schoeppel beat Democratic Challenger Frank Theis, 69, to win a third term.