Nation: Reagan Gets a G.O.P Senate

And some of its most lustrous liberals are shown the door

The results surprised even the most optimistic Republicans. They had counted on a gain of maybe four or five seats in the Senate. They ended up with an eleven and possibly twelve—enough to give them control of the chamber for the first time since 1954. And victory was all the sweeter since the election toppled most of the Senate's leading Democratic liberals: George McGovern in South Dakota, Frank Church in Idaho, Birch Bayh in Indiana, John Culver in Iowa, Warren Magnuson in Washington, Gaylord Nelson in Wisconsin, and John Durkin in New Hampshire. Only a few liberals managed to keep their seats: California's Alan Cranston and Missouri's Thomas Eagleton won easily, while Colorado's Gary Hart barely beat back his Republican challenger, Mary Estill Buchanan and Vermont's Patrick Leaky seemed to have won by a hair. Two other Democrats refused to concede defeat on Election Night: Elizabeth Holtzman of New York and Incumbent Robert Morgan of North Carolina.

A Senate under G.O.P. management would be a far different place, with more moderate Democrats facing more conservative Republicans. Savoring a big re-election win in Kansas, Republican Robert Dole observed: "The liberals in Congress are going to have to learn a lesson. There is a kind of liberalism that doesn't wash any more." At the same time, the high turnover will probably make the Senate even more independent and self-willed. While its majority will share the basic outlook of the conservative President-elect, a Republican 97th Senate could prove to be just as balky as its predecessor.

The victorious Republicans received a lot of unsolicited help from the various right-wing organizations that have sprung up to combat liberalism, like the National Conservative Political Action Committee. But it is questionable how much these groups accomplished. For the most part, the G.O.P. candidates rejected their strident tactics, fearing a backlash. In general, the Republicans won because their opponents had grown too liberal for their states. Yet the conservative groups may have become a permanent feature of the political landscape. In Oklahoma, for example, the Protestant Moral Majority supported a born-again Catholic, State Senator Don Nickles, who overcame the favored Democrat, Andy Coats.

Elsewhere, Republicans were carried to victory by the surging Reagan tide: in Pennsylvania, former Philadelphia District Attorney Arlen Specter edged out former Pittsburgh Mayor Peter Flaherty; in North Carolina, John East, a professor of political science at East Carolina State University and protégé of Republican Senator Jesse Helms, came from behind to unseat Democratic Incumbent Robert Morgan; in Georgia, Herman Talmadge was upset by Businessman Mack Mattingly. Ironically, the man who next to Reagan is most identified with conservatism almost lost. Arizona's Barry Goldwater, 71, seemed infirm to many voters but managed to eke out a narrow victory. Some of the key Senate contests: