3 Governorship Races Are the Key to GOP Drive for More House Seats : Politics: Party needs to counter the Democratic legislatures that will redistrict Florida, Texas and California. Races in all of the states are close.

As the campaign turns into its final weekend, Democrats and Republicans remain locked in tight races for the governorships of rapidly growing Florida, Texas and California--the decisive battles in the parties’ decade-long struggle to control next year’s congressional redistricting.

In California, some polls show Republican Sen. Pete Wilson with a narrow lead over Democrat Dianne Feinstein, although on Thursday the Los Angeles Times Poll showed the race too close to call.

In Florida, former Sen. Lawton Chiles holds a 1-point lead over Republican Gov. Bob Martinez, according to a Mason-Dixon Opinion Research survey released Wednesday, but private polls on both sides give Chiles a larger edge.

In Texas, Republican Clayton W. Williams Jr. has squandered his summer-long double-digit advantage, and now polls show him essentially tied with Democrat Ann Richards in the most volatile of the three contests.

No other races have higher stakes than this gubernatorial triple crown stretching across the Sun Belt. In next year’s congressional reapportionment, California is expected to gain seven seats, Florida four and Texas three. That means those three states alone will send to Washington 105 representatives through the 1990s--nearly one-fourth of the House.

Democrats controlled the 1980 reapportionment in all three states, and, although each state has seen dramatic growth in Republican registration and identification over the last decade, Democrats now hold 60% of the House seats from those states.

Unless Republicans can increase their share when the new district lines are drawn next year, they will be preemptively condemned to another decade of minority status in Congress, many analysts say. And, with Democrats likely to retain complete control of these state legislatures after next week’s voting, “the only chance we have is electing governors . . . “ said Michele M. Davis, executive director of the Republican Governors Assn. “These races are truly painting the portrait of whether the Republican Party is going to be competitive in the 1990s.”

One sign of the GOP’s focus on these races: After campaigning in Massachusetts Thursday morning, President Bush stumped for Martinez in Florida in the afternoon and is scheduled to appear for both Wilson and Williams again before Election Day.

The California race has been a closely fought monochromatic contest between two veteran politicians who have veered toward the middle and whose speeches, on some days, could be interchangeable. By contrast, the Florida and Texas races have been more picaresque--the Texas race almost to the point of parody.

Significantly, Texas and Florida are among the seven states without an income tax, and, although analysts in both states say their jerry-built tax structures will be hard pressed to cope with the continued growth expected in the 1990s, income taxes remain politically unmentionable.

Thus, the candidates have virtually precluded serious discussion of the fiscal problems in both states--which are mounting. “We are a fiscal mess,” said Florida state Rep. Mike Abrams (D-Dade County).

So is Texas, which faces a budget deficit that could top $3 billion over the next two years.

With discussion of the budget muted, both states have focused on more colorful and peripheral concerns. Chiles, who retired from the Senate in 1988, saying he was burned out by legislative gridlock and the demands of fund-raising, has tried to convert the Florida race into a referendum on modern campaigns. He has limited contributions to $100 and defiantly avoided fabricated campaign events designed for television.

Instead, he spends several days a week engaging in long conversations with officials of local governments and social welfare agencies, searching for innovative programs that can be replicated statewide, such as the jail-based drug education program he visited Wednesday in Tampa with a troop of reporters in tow.

“I don’t want to run the traditional campaign,” Chiles said in an interview. “I want to find out what makes this state work . . . . Do I have a blueprint? No. But we know what doesn’t work, and we’re really ready to try to find some things that do . . . .”

Chiles’ curiously passive campaign has allowed Martinez to remain competitive. Few governors have suffered through a rockier first term than Martinez, who outraged conservatives by supporting a new tax on services shortly after his election in 1986, then outraged moderates by supporting repeal when voters rebelled.

Last year, he called a special legislative session to impose tighter restrictions on abortion and was humiliated when the Legislature rebuffed his proposals. At various points, as many as two-thirds of Floridians viewed Martinez’s performance unfavorably.

But the governor--who has raised over $10 million, more than twice as much as Chiles--has fought back with a sophisticated and effective media barrage that has touted everything from his generally strong environmental record to his support for the death penalty. Finally, this fall, he aired an affecting ad in which he acknowledged making mistakes and insisted he had “listened and . . . learned” from the voters.

With contrition established, he has worked to position himself as an outsider, decrying the “Tallahassee gang” and trying to link Chiles to the budget debacle in Washington. When the candidates debated for the first time Tuesday, Martinez repeatedly called Chiles a “Washington insider” in tones that made the description sound like an indictable offense.

“You’ve got a Washington thought process,” Martinez barked.

But Chiles remains enormously popular in the state, particularly among longtime residents, and his call to take back politics from “the special interests” catches the music of 1990.

Republican prospects are better in Texas--although not nearly as bright as they seemed a month ago. Through the summer, Richards’ campaign was comatose. Then, in early October, Williams revived his opponent by first suggesting that Richards, a former alcoholic, had started “drinking again” when she said polls showed the race narrowing.

A few days later, angry over her accusation that his bank was involved with a loan broker under investigation for laundering drug money, he refused to shake her hand when they shared a stage in Dallas. The latest gaffe occurred Tuesday, when Williams could not recall the contents of the single proposition on the ballot, a constitutional amendment.

For many voters, these incidents crystallized the doubts that had been accumulating all year about Williams, a flamboyant businessman with a fatal attraction for incendiary remarks. “This is the first thing Democrats have had to get excited about since before the primary,” said Austin-based Republican consultant William Miller. “All of a sudden, three weeks out, they get a gift from the gods.”

If so, it is one of biblical proportions: Two recent polls have found the race to be a dead heat, although a new Mason-Dixon survey gave Williams a 2-point advantage.

Those numbers have deepened concerns among Republican strategists that Williams’ gruff cowboy persona may finally prove culturally unacceptable to ordinarily Republican-leaning suburban voters, who spend more time in the mall than on the range. Williams has been further tangled by a skein of accusations about allegedly unethical practices in his businesses.

Even his bottomless advertising budget--through Oct. 31, Williams has spent a record $20.7 million in the campaign, $8 million more than Richards--has failed to halt the slide. Many analysts say his relentless commercials may even be deepening the voters’ apparent weariness with the man, who had seemed so fresh in winning the Republican nomination this spring.

“If he loses,” said Greg Hartman, director of the Democratic get-out-the vote effort in Texas, “it is going to be a case of somebody who finally bought too much television.”

Few observers here are willing to guess the outcome of a race that has been as turbulent as the Gulf Coast in hurricane season. But Richards’ comeback represents one of the year’s most unexpected sources of anxiety for the GOP. In a year that has suddenly turned sour for Republicans in Congress, the results of this tense, contentious struggle--as well as the gubernatorial contests in Florida and California--may determine whether the GOP has anything to celebrate Tuesday night.