Bush Gains a Super Victory; Dukakis Hikes Delegate Lead : Jackson, Gore Run Strong in Deep South

Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis won Florida, was running first in Texas and piled up enough delegates in other states in the South and elsewhere on Super Tuesday to bolster his lead in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, boosted by black support, was contending with Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr. in several Deep South states, including Alabama and North Carolina. Jackson won Virginia, and Gore, the only white Southerner in the race, captured his home state and neighboring Kentucky.

Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, the victor in last month’s Iowa caucuses and generally considered to be Dukakis’ principal adversary until Tuesday, turned in a dismal performance, winning only his own state and trailing far behind in Texas and other states he had once hoped to win.

Five of 20 States

Here are partial returns from five of the 20 states in which Democratic voters registered their choice for President in primaries and caucuses:

In delegate-rich Florida, with 28% of the precincts reporting, Dukakis had 95,884, or 32%. Jackson had 63,093, or 21%. Gore had 54,902, or 18%. Gephardt had 46,848, or 16%. Former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart had 9,808, or 3%, and Illinois Sen. Paul Simon had 6,126, or 2%.

In Kentucky, with 98% of the precincts reporting, Gore had 142,173, or 46% of the vote. Dukakis had 56,809, or 18%. Jackson had 47,729, or 16%. Gephardt had 28,088, or 9%. Hart had 11,658, or 4%, and Simon had 9,685, or 3%.

Jackson Leading

In Virginia, with 68% of the precincts reporting, Jackson had 114,579, or 47%. Gore had 54,922, or 22%. Dukakis had 47,749, or 20%. Gephardt had 9,528, or 4%. Hart had 4,356, or 2%, and Simon had 4,247, or 2%.

In North Carolina, with 64% of the vote in, Gore had 147,676, or 35%. Jackson had 133,481, or 32%. Dukakis had 82,926, or 20%. Gephardt had 24,317, or 6%. Hart had 10,447, or 3%, and Simon had 5,411, or 1%.

In Texas, the largest of the Super Tuesday states, Dukakis had 47,789, or 32% with 11% of the precincts reporting. Gore had 31,938, or 21%. Jackson had 30,086, or 20%. Gephardt had 24,666, or 16%. Hart had 8,476, or 6%, and Simon had 2,950, or 2%.

The Dukakis campaign’s initial reaction to their candidate’s success, which had been widely expected, was characteristically cautious. In Illinois, where next Tuesday’s primary will mark the first contest in a big Midwestern industrial state, Charlie Baker, Dukakis’ campaign manager in the state, declared: “We don’t expect to win here.”

Dukakis will make a significant investment of time and money--about $500,000--said Baker, who had managed Dukakis’ campaign to victory in the New Hampshire presidential primary. But Baker contended that in Illinois, Dukakis would be at a severe disadvantage running against two hometown favorites, Simon and Jackson, who has long made his home in Chicago.

Chief Adversary

Meanwhile, Gore, who had concentrated much of his efforts in the closing days of the Super Tuesday campaign on damaging Gephardt’s candidacy, moved to lay claim to the role of chief adversary of front-runner Dukakis.

“This will be a two-man race between me and Michael Dukakis,” Gore said from his election-night headquarters in the Opryland Hotel in Nashville. He prepared to move on to Illinois today for a lunch-time factory visit.

Gore acknowledged that Jackson would also be a major candidate but said: “In the voters’ minds, I think they see it as between me and Dukakis.”

Delegate Strength

The Jackson camp had another view. His campaign manager, Gerald Austin, argued that the key to Super Tuesday and to the future course of the race was delegate strength, a category in which his advisers hoped to come in second only to Dukakis.

Jackson himself was obviously elated.

“Something phenomenal is happening in our nation,” he said as the returns were still coming in Tuesday night. “Just this week, 23 years ago, we were in the trauma of having to march from Selma to Montgomery. The marchers were beaten back with horses and state troopers and cattle prods. That was a very bloody Sunday.

“Now, 23 years later, we are not marching from Selma to Montgomery, we’re marching to local precinct polls, and there’s a new politics in the South, and I have won Southern states today.”

‘Long Process’

Gephardt, who watched the returns from a hotel in his hometown of St. Louis, said the campaign was a “long process, no matter what happens here.”

His advisers were looking ahead beyond Illinois to the Michigan Democratic caucuses on March 26 where Gephardt expects important aid from the politically potent United Auto Workers, many of whose leaders look with favor on his candidacy because of his controversial advocacy of tougher U.S. trade policy.

“If we don’t do well tonight, I think about the workers who aren’t doing well because we don’t have a good trade policy, and I think about the farmers who aren’t doing well because we don’t have good agricultural policy,” Gephardt said.

His advisers blamed Gephardt’s disappointing showing on the massive advertising campaign conducted by Dukakis and Gore, which portrayed him as duplicitous in that he shifted his position on issues and took campaign funds from the same interest groups he was supposedly challenging.

‘Real Candidate’

Gephardt adviser Bob Shrum, watching early returns, remarked that Super Tuesday “has expanded, not shrunk, the field. Gore is now a real candidate and (Jackson) is much stronger.”

The Southern regional primary that formed the centerpiece of the Super Tuesday voting was created by Southern Democratic Party leaders in the wake of what they saw as the disastrous 1984 election, in which the Democratic ticket failed to carry any Southern states.

These leaders hoped that, by massing the nominating contests of Southern and Border states on the same day, they would ensure an important role for the South in their party’s nominating process and make it more likely that the Democrats would pick a candidate conservative enough to win the region against the Republicans in November.

Excessive Influence

More immediately, Southern Democrats were hoping their new regional mega-primary would counter what they regarded as the excessive influence on the nominating process of Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states to select convention delegates.

In 1984, many Southerners were resentful that two Democratic presidential contenders from their region--former Florida Gov. Reubin Askew and South Carolina Sen. Ernest F. Hollings--were eliminated from consideration because of their poor showings in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.

By creating a huge pool of Southern votes early in the process, the architects of Super Tuesday sought to attract a number of Southern candidates into the Democratic competition, one of whom would be able to rally the region’s voters behind his candidacy.

Decline to Enter

But several prominent Southern Democrats, notably Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, declined to enter the race. And the only white Southerner who did become a presidential candidate, Gore of Tennessee, was handicapped in the national race because he failed to demonstrate any strength in the earlier contests in the North, until he won a narrow victory in the Wyoming caucuses last Saturday.