Turnout Key to Races Around U.S.

Nervous politicians put aside opinion polls and campaign strategies and watched voter turnout across the nation today for signs of winners and losers in the first midterm election of the 1990s. In North Carolina, where voters were deciding a bitterly contested Senate contest, officials reported long lines at polling places.

President Bush and his wife, Barbara, stood in line for 10 minutes at a polling place at a Houston nursing home. They waved off reporters’ questions and, after voting, went to the airport for the flight back to Washington.

Republicans, admitting a low turnout would be bad news for their candidates in most states, had spent the closing days of the campaign exhorting their partisans to go to the polls.

Democrats counted on uneasiness over the economy to induce their followers to vote.

The Senate contest between conservative Republican Sen. Jesse Helms and his black challenger, Harvey Gantt, generated a heavy turnout in North Carolina.

“Most precincts say they have more people voting than they do in presidential elections,” said Mecklenburg County election supervisor Bill Culp.

“When you see long lines like this--more than 300 voters were here before 8:30--you know you’re going to have a nice day,” Gantt said. “It’s a good sign for us.”

Helms voted in Raleigh and described himself as “always a little bit anxious” about the outcome of a campaign.

“I’ve done the best I can and if it’s not the best for the people of North Carolina, then we’ll see, but I think it is,” Helms said.

In northern Michigan, highway crews had to dig out the snowed-in clerk of Wellington Township so he could open the polls.

Snow also was reported in Iowa, but election officials said early turnout was “heavier than a normal off-year election.”