The Midwest: Heartland Recaptured

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Nowhere was this year's electoral outcome awaited with greater suspense than in the Midwest, where millions of Republicans deserted their party in 1964. And nowhere, as it turned out, did the G.O.P. make so vigorous a come back. Republicans not only eradicated their losses of two years ago but also added some upsets of their own, and may well have recovered their historic power base in the nation's heartland.

In addition to the glittering Senate victories of Chuck Percy and Bob Grif fin, the voters re-elected a phalanx of Republican regulars: Iowa's Jack Miller, Kansas' James B. Pearson, South Dakota's Karl Mundt, Nebraska's Carl Curtis. Indeed, it was a boomerang attempt by Lyndon Johnson to dislodge Curtis that led to one of six gubernatorial victories in the region.

Brother Bother. Piqued by Curtis' criticism of his Administration over the Bobby Baker case, the President persuaded Nebraska's popular Democratic Governor Frank Morrison—who had been favored to win re-election—to run for Curtis' Senate seat. As Governor, Morrison had enjoyed the support of Nebraska's conservative businessmen, but the same element had also backed Curtis. Forced to choose between the two, the business community stuck by the Republican. Defeated with Morrison was the Democratic candidate to succeed him, Lieutenant Governor Philip Sorensen.

The latter was more hurt than helped by his abrasive older brother Ted. President Kennedy's former speechwriter, who flew in from the East to campaign for Phil and immediately got into a shouting match with the Omaha World-Herald over some disparaging remarks that Ted had made about progress in his home state in 1961. In the end, Phil lost the limelight to a G.O.P. novice, Norbert ("Nobby") Tiemann, 42, himself a Kennedy-handsome, 6-ft. 3-in. banker from Wasau (pop. 724). An unknown nine months ago, Tiemann stumped the state shaking every outstretched hand, put across his German name with the slogan: "Tiemann. . . Nebraska's Way to Spell Governor." He won by 101,586 votes.

Vexation with Taxation. In Iowa, where a similar L.B.J. intervention failed to persuade Democratic Governor Harold Hughes to take on G.O.P. Senator Jack Miller, Hughes, an ex-truck driver and reformed alcoholic, easily won re-election over Republican William G. Murray, an Iowa State University economics professor; nonetheless, Hughes-imposed tax increases cut down his margin of victory. The voters' revolt over taxes-cum-inflation was also a major issue in Kansas.

Conversely, Ohio's G.O.P. Governor James Rhodes, who was re-elected to a second four-year term by a landslide 700,000 votes over Democratic State Senator Frazier Reams Jr., was helped by the fact that he had upheld a 1962 campaign promise not to raise taxes. Spending also figured in the gubernatorial campaign in Wisconsin, where Democratic Candidate Patrick J. Lucey, a Kennedy supporter, attacked Republican Incumbent Warren P. Knowles as a profligate squanderer and "cheerleader Governor." Nonetheless, Knowles, whose accomplishments include ambitious educational reforms and a $300 million anti-pollution program, trounced Lucey by 626,250 votes to 538,797.