Strategists to Study Tuesday’s Elections in Virginia, N.J. : Two Key Votes Test Political Winds

For Democrats in Virginia, Tuesday’s election will test whether they can drive back the Republican tide in the South to retain the governorship with a ticket that includes a woman running for attorney general and a black for lieutenant governor.

For Republicans in New Jersey, Tuesday’s election will test whether they can take advantage of the expected landslide reelection of their incumbent governor to build grass-roots strength and gain control of the New Jersey Assembly.

These campaigns for state office, like nearly all such contests, will be decided mainly by local issues and personalities. Nevertheless, with the national political landscape in a state of flux, both campaigns are being closely watched by strategists in Washington for clues to shifts in the balance of future political power.

Base Among Blacks

A Democratic sweep in Virginia--apart from making L. Douglas Wilder, the party’s candidate for lieutentant governor, the first black to win statewide executive office in the South since Reconstruction--would suggest that Democrats can hold on to their critical base among black voters and still gain enough white votes to win, even in conservative regions, such as the Old Dominion.

In New Jersey, by capturing one house of the Democratic-controlled Legislature, the GOP can move a step closer to the party’s long-range goal of dominating the reapportionment process around the nation and, eventually, gaining control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

When Virginia Democrats nominated Wilder, a state senator, for lieutenant governor, and Mary Sue Terry, a member of the House of Delegates, for attorney general, many analysts believed that the party had doomed its chances of capturing those two seats and that their candidacies would damage the prospects of Atty. Gen. Gerald L. Baliles, the candidate for governor.

Analysts Surprised

But the Democratic showing so far has surprised those analysts. Most polls indicate that Baliles has been well ahead of his Republican opponent, Wyatt B. Durrette, a lawyer and businessman, from the start, though the gap seems to be tightening.

In the contest for attorney general, Terry also appears to be leading her opponent, Delegate W. R. (Buster) O’Brien, and Wilder seems to be at least holding his own against Republican State Sen. John Chichester for lieutenant governor.

Democratic professionals credit the party’s strong showing in the polls to the one-term record of incumbent Democratic Gov. Charles S. Robb, who cut state payrolls, avoided raising taxes, increased aid to local schools, pushed cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay and appointed blacks to key state positions.

Robb, the late Lyndon B. Johnson’s son-in-law, is ineligible to succeed himself. But he has campaigned hard for the party ticket.

Robb’s performance in office showed voters that, “with Democrats, you can have your cake and eat it too,” said David Doak, a political consultant advising Baliles’ campaign. “You can have fiscal discipline and still be progressive on racial polices and clean up the environment,” said Doak, who managed Robb’s 1981 election effort.

No-Tax-Hike Pledge

All three Democratic candidates have worked hard to take advantage of Robb’s legacy. Baliles has promised to press on with the incumbent’s programs, and he has taken the no-tax-hike pledge. Terry has run what University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato calls “a nice, folksy” television ad campaign, which he believes has deftly turned attention away from the fact that she is not only a woman but single.

Wilder has worked hard to diminish the race factor--for instance, turning down an offer from Jesse Jackson to campaign for him and, instead, emphasizing the conservative side of his record, such as his support for capital punishment.

Republicans say Wilder is one of the most liberal senators in the state. But they have had a hard time attacking him, out of fear that their attacks would be branded as racist.

Still, Democrats estimate privately that Baliles will have to win by a substantial margin--seven or eight percentage points--to carry Wilder to victory too.

Skeptical of Polls

And Republicans doubt that will happen. Skeptical of the polls, which show the GOP candidates trailing, Michelle Davis, executive director of the Republican Governors Assn., said that Republican voters tend to turn out at a higher rate than Democrats and that voters who are interviewed by pollsters tend to deny that they bear any prejudice, even if their vote will be influenced by race.

“I think there is still that unspoken, unmentioned factor in the back of people’s minds,” she said, “especially knowing the kind of state Virginia is.”

The Republican campaign got an early boost from a fund-raising visit by President Reagan, who enjoys great popularity in the state--so much so that Democrats breathed a sigh of relief when they learned that Reagan would not make a last-minute visit on behalf of the GOP ticket.

Contrasted with the tension in Virginia over what appears to be a tightening race, the only suspense in New Jersey is the struggle for control of the lower house in the Legislature, where the Democrats now have a 44-36 majority.

According to a Newark Star-Ledger-Eagleton Institute Poll taken a week before the election, incumbent Republican Gov. Thomas H. Kean was leading his Democratic opponent, 33-year-old Essex County executive Peter Shapiro, by no fewer than 40 points.

Broad Appeal

The breadth of Kean’s appeal is evidenced by the fact that the Republican has been endorsed by such traditional Democratic standbys as the state AFL-CIO and Coretta Scott King, wife of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Along with an appealing personality, Kean has been blessed with a revitalized state economy, particularly in the high-tech area.

“He’s impossible to attack,” Rutgers University political scientist Ross Baker said. “He has sort of a state-level Teflon.”

With Kean’s big lead, he and his party have been able to pour resources into the contest for the Assembly seats, in keeping with national GOP goals. “This is part of our long-term strategy to increase control of state legislatures so we can influence reapportionment after the next census,” one White House aide said.

Republicans complain that Democratic-controlled legislatures gerrymandered House districts after the 1980 census, thus preserving Democratic control in the House, and the Republicans are determined to be the party in charge of drawing most of the new lines after 1990.

New Jersey is one of 27 legislatures controlled by the Democrats. Republicans have majorities in only 12, 10 are divided and one state is nonpartisan.