Democrats See Opening in GOP Split : Politics: The end of the campaign finds Bush and conservative Republicans divided by the tax battle. Their opponents hope the economic fairness issue will produce gains.

The nation’s two political parties are winding up the 1990 election campaign in a role reversal that provides Democrats with a potentially significant advantage in Tuesday’s balloting.

On the eve of decision day, the normally fragmented and defensive Democrats seem notably united and aggressive behind their newly revived campaign theme calling for increased economic fairness.

“Instead of squabbling among themselves about court-ordered school busing, racial quotas and defense spending, they’ve found a common message of tax fairness to the middle class,” said Mark Gersh, executive director of the National Committee for an Effective Congress, which conducts research for Democratic candidates.

By contrast, the customarily cohesive GOP, which has long held the advantage on economic issues, has been sharply split and thrown on the defensive as a result of the prolonged battle between President Bush and conservative Republican members of Congress over the budget and taxes.

“The (Republican) party is more divided than any time since Ronald Reagan challenged Gerald Ford for the presidency in 1976,” said Jeff Bell, a political analyst who was a Reagan aide in that campaign. “There was a lot of talk about the anti-incumbent mood in this election. I think it’s going to turn out to be anti-Republican.”

Professionals in both parties agree that Bush, who as late as last spring was regarded as the GOP’s primary campaign asset, has lost his luster. Democratic pollster Mark Mellman contends that when Bush arrived in Hawaii to campaign for Republican Rep. Patricia Saiki, who is challenging Democrat Daniel K. Akaka for the U.S. Senate, Akaka was three points behind. “When Bush left, Akaka was ahead by two points,” Mellman said.

There is abundant evidence that the political environment in other Senate races has been transformed too. Democratic incumbents in states such as Michigan and Illinois--who were once thought to be vulnerable--appear to be relatively safe, while Democratic challengers have been gaining ground on Republican senators once thought all but unbeatable in Oregon, North Carolina and Minnesota.

Striving to reverse the trend, Bush, who has been campaigning night and day around the country, accused the Democrats of waging class warfare. Bush told a GOP fund-raiser in suburban northern Virginia last week that Democratic claims that Republicans “favor the rich” only exemplify “this old divide-and-conquer mentality that we’ve heard every single campaign year from the Democrats.”

And House GOP campaign strategist Marc Nuttle says that while the fairness issue may appeal to the disadvantaged, “it overlooks middle-class voters, who would like to do better for themselves in life.”

But Democrats claim that the course of the budget debate showed them to be firmly on the side of the middle class. “The President’s objective was to substantially reduce the tax burden on those making more than $200,000 a year while increasing it on everyone else,” said Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.). “That’s just unfair, and most Americans recognized it as unfair, and the budget process crystallized that in a way that we’ve not been able to do over many years.”

Still, critical questions remain over how far the Democrats can go in converting their new-found unity and their economic fairness battle cry into victories on Tuesday. “The national mood has swung decidedly to the Democrats,” said pollster Mellman. “But,” he cautioned, “swings like that get translated imperfectly into votes in local elections.”

The importance of local factors is just what Republicans are counting on. “I still see a very mixed pattern around the country, and not necessarily any partisan trend,” said Charles Black, spokesman for the Republican National Committee.

“This election is about state-specific issues,” said Norman Cummings, the RNC’s political director.

For example, in the North Carolina Senate campaign--probably the most symbolically significant race in the country--hard-pressed conservative Republican incumbent Jesse Helms has apparently slowed the momentum of his Democratic challenger, Harvey Gantt, the black former mayor of Charlotte, by accusing Gantt of favoring racial quotas.

Helms also charged Gantt with being part of a scheme to use an affirmative-action program to gain a television station license, which was later sold to a white-owned corporation at a huge profit.

But earlier polls in the state suggested that Helms was suffering from public dissatisfaction with the prolonged budget debate in Washington. And elsewhere it is easy to find evidence of the impact of the budget debate and the fairness issue, even in the races for gubernatorial seats, which supposedly are insulated from national issues.

“It’s a black cloud on the horizon over every Republican,” said Michelle Davis, executive director of the Republican Governors Assn.

Davis says she is particularly concerned about the impact of the tax fairness issue on the tight gubernatorial race in Florida. “What makes me nervous is that it is energizing Democratic constituencies,” she said--particularly older citizens, who resent the Bush-backed proposal (which Congress later rejected) to boost Medicare premiums.

Davis’ anxiety is supported by polling data, according to Republican pollster Ed Goeas, president of Tarrance & Associates. Goeas notes that the recent sharp decline in Bush’s approval rating--to 48%, from 65% last July, as reported in a Gallup Poll published last week--has been accompanied by a loss of support for Republicans among voters 45 years old and older. The impact of such defections could be particularly severe, Goeas warns, because “these are high-propensity voters in a midyear election.”

Even in the Texas gubernatorial campaign, which has been dominated by the personal foibles and blunders of the rival candidates--Democrat state Treasurer Ann Richards and Republican businessman Clayton W. Williams Jr.--the tax fairness issue is making its presence felt.

University of Houston pollster Richard Murray attributes Richards’ recent success in narrowing the huge lead that Williams once held to voter backlash over the federal budget debacle. “It’s not just energizing Democrats,” Murray said, “it’s turning off a lot of conservative Republicans, who are mad at Bush.”

In fact, one widespread concern among GOP operatives is that in some races a decisive number of Republican voters will stay away from the polls because of disgust with the President’s handling of the issue.

“This election will be decided by turnout,” said Republican consultant Eddie Mahe, who fears a recurrence of the 1982 election, when many Republicans--disheartened by that year’s deep recession--did not vote, and the GOP lost 26 House seats.

Republican pollster Goeas points to a shift of voters in the 18-to-35 age bracket away from the Republican Party to the undecided category--a sure sign that many will not vote at all. “This does not bode well for the Republican Party,” Goeas said.

Nevertheless, the predictions for Democratic gains in the House of Representatives this year are relatively modest--perhaps five to 15 seats. One reason is that the Democrats are starting off from a higher plateau than usual. Their 258-seat majority in the House represents the greatest strength they have had this century entering an off-year election with a Republican in the White House.

Forecasts for Democratic gains in the Senate are also low, ranging from no increase to a rise of two seats--compared to an eight-seat gain in 1986, when the Democrats took over the Senate. But in 1986, 22 Republican seats were at stake, compared with only 18 in 1990.

In addition, the 1990 crop of Republican Senate incumbents was considered stronger than the 1986 group. This factor, combined with President Bush’s strong standing in the polls last year, when would-be office-seekers had to decide whether or not to run, discouraged some strong potential Democratic candidates.

Here is a brief look at the hottest gubernatorial, Senate and House races:

--Governors. Because of impending legislative and congressional reapportionment based on the new census, attention in the 36 gubernatorial contests is being focused on the three fastest-growing big states, all of which now have Republican governors.

In the richest prize, Republicans are increasingly optimistic that Sen. Pete Wilson, with his theme of experienced leadership, will triumph over former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein, who may have waited until too late to stress the national Democratic issue of economic fairness.

But in Texas, the late Democratic surge has made the race a tossup. Of the three top races, Democrats are most confident of Florida, where former U.S. Sen. Lawton M. Chiles appears to have a narrow edge over Republican incumbent Bob Martinez.

The Democrats’ economic fairness issue seems to be helping Ohio Atty. Gen. Anthony J. Celebreeze narrow the lead of former Cleveland Mayor George V. Voinovich. And in Illinois, Democratic Atty. Gen. Neil F. Hartigan is relying on his pledge not to raise taxes in a close battle with Republican Secretary of State Jim Edgar.

--Senate. Democratic hopes for adding to their majority are highest in three states: In North Carolina, the Democrats will try to turn Helms’ last-minute attack on Gantt to their advantage by charging Helms with conducting a smear campaign. In Oregon, Democratic businessman Harry Lonsdale is exploiting the complacency of four-term Republican incumbent Mark O. Hatfield. And in Minnesota, a GOP scandal has made Republican Sen. Rudy Boschwitz vulnerable to liberal Democrat Paul Wellstone, who is hammering at the economic fairness issue.

That same theme has helped Democratic challenger Harvey Sloan narrow the lead of Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. And Republicans hope that the fairness message used by Democrat Akaka will be matched by the personal appeal of challenger Saiki in Hawaii.

Elsewhere, other possibilities for Republican gains are Iowa, where Democratic incumbent Tom Harkin faces Republican Rep. Tom Tauke, and Massachusetts, where resentment at the state party has aided Republican businessman James Rappaport’s challenge to Democratic Sen. John Kerry.

--House. Seeking to minimize expectations for their success Tuesday, Democrats point out that many of the seats they now hold were won in close contests in recent years, and say they will be forced to fight hard to hold on to these gains, let alone add to them. “We’ve got as many vulnerable incumbents as the Republicans, if not more,” one House Democratic strategist contended.

Among the most vulnerable Democratic targets--as Republicans see them--are Rep. George E. Brown Jr. of Colton and Rep. James McClure Clarke of North Carolina, whose districts have both become more Republican, and Maryland’s Rep. Roy Dyson, who has had to defend his ties to military contractors.

Democrats consider the three most likely Republican House members to fall to be Rep. Charles Pashayan Jr. of Fresno and Rep. Denny Smith of Oregon--both hurt by their links to the savings and loan industry--and Minnesota Rep. Arlan Stangeland, damaged because of his involvement with a female lobbyist.

The Democrats’ best chances for gains are among the 18 Republican open seats, while there are only 11 open Democratic seats for the GOP to shoot at. Moreover, several of the Republican openings are in traditionally Democratic territory, such as Hawaii, Rhode Island and Arkansas.

Staff writers Tom Rosenstiel and Maura Reynolds contributed to this story.