Democrats’ Grip on Congress Increases : Politics: Gains in governorships, including Florida and Texas, will help party dominate reapportionment.

Democrats strengthened their already powerful grip on Congress and scored important gains in gubernatorial races Tuesday after a midterm election campaign dominated by heated debate over taxes and growing anxiety over the nation’s economy.

By increasing the number of states with Democratic governors to 31 from 29--including the fast-growing mega-states of Florida and Texas--the Democrats greatly increased their chances of dominating the reapportionment process that, two years from now, will reshape the House on the basis of the 1990 census. Seven state races were still undecided.

And, in a campaign conducted against the backdrop of possible war in the Persian Gulf, Tuesday’s results showed only scattered evidence of the much-heralded backlash against incumbents and contained little good news for President Bush.

Bush, who had campaigned intensively for Republican candidates across the country for the last 10 days and who voted in Houston before returning to the White House on Tuesday, faced GOP gubernatorial losses in at least two politically pivotal states, Texas and Florida.

In the Senate, the Democrats may be gaining a seat. Liberal college professor Paul Wellstone was leading two-term Republican incumbent Rudy Boschwitz in Minnesota. At the same time, a half a dozen or more other incumbent Democratic senators once thought to be highly vulnerable turned back Republican challengers.

And, in the House, Democrats--who had held a 258-175 majority--appeared to be making a net gain of eight seats, according to television network projections.

Surprisingly, one of the closest Senate races involved a Democrat previously considered almost invincible: Bill Bradley of New Jersey. The former basketball star and potential presidential prospect narrowly edged out a little-known GOP challenger, Christine Todd Whitman, a former state public utility commssioner, who based her campaign on linking Bradley to the intensely unpopular tax program of Democratic Gov. James J. Florio.

For their part, Republican Senate incumbents also showed considerable strength--several of them in the face of fierce opposition.

One such GOP success came in North Carolina, the day’s most symbolically important Senate race and one of its most bitterly fought. There, three-term Republican incumbent and conservative bulwark Jesse Helms staved off a strong bid by Democrat Harvey Gantt, the black former mayor of Charlotte.

Indeed, one of the most notable aspects of the election was the failure, not only in the Senate races but in the contests for the House as well, for the anti-incumbent trend to reach major proportions, despite public revulsion over the federal budget reduction fiasco just before the election.

Only a handful of House incumbents in both parties had been beaten, although some other House incumbents were threatened with defeat.

And in many cases the defeat of incumbents stemmed less from any broad trend than from special local circumstances--such as charges of impropriety, which led to the downfall of Democrat Rep. Roy Dyson of Maryland.

Although polls showed a mood of discontent with current officeholders did exist among many voters, the results indicated it was often not strong enough to overcome the practical advantages of incumbency.

Tuesday night’s returns were also inconclusive about the political impact of the abortion issue. According to a survey by ABC News of races for House, Senate and governor, opponents of abortion won more races overall than advocates of abortion rights. The survey showed also that a majority of candidates who switched positions from opposing abortion to supporting the right to abortion lost their races.

But the network said that, in four races in which abortion was considered to be the decisive issue, the candidates backing the right to abortion won.

The Democratic victories in the governor races in Florida, where former U.S. Sen. Lawton Chiles defeated incumbment Republican Gov. Bob Martinez, and in Texas, where state Treasurer Ann Richards defeated businessman Clayton W. Williams Jr., were particularly significant for the future.

These two big and fast-growing states, like California, will be critical battlegrounds in the struggle over reapportionment.

Florida is expected to gain at least three House seats as a result of the 1990 census and Texas four. Controlling the governorship, along with the both houses of the state Legislature--where existing Democratic majorities were expected to continue--will give the Democrats a big advantage in the redistricting process.

Democrats also won governships previously held by Republicans in Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Rhode Island, while losing to Republicans governorships they had previously held in Ohio and Vermont.

Also, former Republican Sen. Lowell Weicker, running as an independent, was elected governor of Connecticut, a post previously held by a Democrat.

Among the Republican Senate incumbents who fought off serious Democratic challengers, in addition to Helms in North Carolina, were Mitch McConnell in Kentucky and Mark O. Hatfield in Oregon.

In New Hampshire, Republican Rep. Robert C. Smith took the Senate seat being vacated by GOP Sen. Gordon J. Humphrey, who was stepping down to run for the state Legislature. In Colorado, Republican Rep. Hank Brown won the seat vacated by Republican William L. Armstrong, and, in Idaho, Rep. Larry E. Craig maintained GOP control of the seat that had been held by retiring James A. McClure.

Meanwhile, a number of Democratic senators, including Carl Levin of Michigan, John Kerry of Masachusetts, Paul Simon of Illinois, Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island, Tom Harkin of Iowa and Daniel K. Akaka of Hawaii--all of whom Republicans once thought could be easily unseated--were apparently reelected, according to network projections.

By late evening, only three House Democratic incumbents had lost, Dyson of Maryland, Rep. Doug Walgren of Pennsylvania and Rep. Robert Kastenmeier of Wisconsin.

Walgren’s opponent, attorney Rick Santorum, won by attacking his support for the congressional pay raise and his acceptance of special interest money--a theme used by many challengers.

Kastenmeier, a veteran of 32 years in Congress, was upset by Republican Scott L. Klug, a former television news reporter who called his opponent “torn, worn and outdated.”

House Republican incumbents who went down to defeat were Reps. Peter Smith of Vermont, Bill Grant of Florida and Stan Parris of Virginia. Smith, a freshman, had been vulnerable since he won two years ago with only 41% of the vote in a three-way race. He was upset by Bernard Sanders, the former mayor of Burlington, Vt., and a socialist--the first socialist to be elected to the Congress since 1929.

Smith’s candidacy won national attention two weeks ago when Bush went to New Hampshire to campaign for him. Smith, determined to demonstrate his independence, made a point of declaring in the President’s presence that he was unhappy with some White House policies, such as the veto of the civil rights bill.

Grant’s opponent, Pete Peterson, a former Air Force colonel, made an issue of the incumbent’s 1989 switch from the Democratic to the Republican party. Parris’ challenger, Alexandria Mayor James J. Moran, made an issue of of Parris’ opposition to abortion.

Democrats also made gains in the House by taking control of open seats previously held by Republicans in Arkansas and Rhode Island, while the GOP claimed a previously held Democratic seat in Connecticut. The winner there was Gary A. Franks, an alderman from Waterbury and the first black elected to the House from the Nutmeg State since before the Civil War.

The number of incubments defeated Tueday seemed on the same scale as in recent elections. In 1988, three incumbent senators and six incubment House members were defeated, while in 1986 the totals were seven incumbent senators and six members of the House.

Among propositions on state ballots, Massachusetts voters rejected a stringent tax revolt measure, but voters in Colorado overwhelmingly approved a law limiting the number of years officials may serve the state in Congress.

Massachusetts Question 3, which would have reduced taxes by $2.6 billion in fiscal 1992, was defeated, 399,760 votes to 261,295, with 33% of precincts reporting. It would have been the nation’s largest voter-initiated state tax cut in history.

The Colorado proposal, amending the state constitution, limits the terms of U.S. senators and representatives to 12 consecutive years. It also limits state officials to eight consecutive years in office. With 48% of precincts reporting, 70% voted in favor.

Also among the 236 ballot questions confronting voters around the nation was a Florida constitutional amendment requiring a three-day wait on hangun purchases. With 42% of precincts counted, 84% of Florida voters favored it.

By the time voters went to the the polls, the 1990 campaign had gone through a series of drastic twists and turns that had made it seem particularly spasmodic, even by the standards governing midterm elections.

The battle that confronted voters Tuesday had begun to take shape more than a year earlier--in the summer of 1989. It was then that politicians, their fingers to the political winds, began making the initial critical decisions about their own careers: whether to run or retire, whether to seek higher office or stay put.

At the time, conditions appeared very favorable for Republicans. The peace and relative prosperity that had helped Bush win the White House still prevailed. The President’s own approval rating was high.

In addition, Republican prospects seemed brightened by the charges of ethical misbehavior that had shaken the House Democratic leadership. GOP strategists talked hopefully of using the example of House Speaker Jim Wright of Texas, accused of violating the House rules restricting outside income, as the spark for igniting voter indignation.

Taken all together, things looked so good that the GOP talked of reversing historical tradition, which dictates that the party controlling the White House loses ground in off-year elections.

But some ambitious House Republicans looked at the bright prospects and saw an opportunity to ascend the political ladder. Eight GOP House members decided to give up their relatively safe jobs to seek places in the Senate. Two other Republicans quit the House to run for governorships and one resigned to run for lieutenant governor.

For Republican fortunes nationwide, the result of these decisions was to dilute the enormous advantage of incumbency and make it potentially harder to record net gains in the House if and when the political climate turned less sunny--as it did by Election Day.

Late last June came the break Democrats had long been waiting for.

Locked in negotiations with the Democrats over the federal budget and pressured by the slowing economy and the mounting cost of the S&L; bailout, the President declared that he would accept a tax increase--violating his celebrated read-my-lips campaign pledge.

Democrats immediately charged that Bush’s real reason for raising taxes was to ensure that the Treasury could pay off his wealthy friends in the savings and loan industry.

Reaction against what Bush had done was even more vociferous within his own party.

In defiance of the President’s new position, a majority of the Republican members of the House of Representatives went on record against a tax increase. And, in a number of states, Republican candidates who had been running on a no-new-taxes platform stuck to their guns, making a point of declaring their independence from their President.

Public opinion turned gloomy. A survey by Market Opinion Research, a respected Republican firm, showed that, by a ratio of roughly 2 to 1, Americans believed that the country was heading down “the wrong track, “ a finding that one Republican congressional campaign strategist called “horrendous.”

In midsummer,n an event occurred that for a time seemed to overshadow all else: Saddam Hussein, despotic ruler of Iraq, launched a brutal invasion of Kuwait and Bush responded forcefully, organizing an international alliance to defend Saudi Arabia and restore the sovereignty of Kuwait.

Mindful of the public’s tendency to rally behind the President in times of international crisis, the Democrats prudently announced their support for Bush’s Mideast commitment.

The Democratic attack on the GOP seemed blunted, and GOP hopes revived.

But, as summer turned into fall, and the confrontation with Iraq turned into stalemate, the stage was set for yet another transformation of the political landscape.

Attention shifted back to domestic issues, principally the budget negotiations between the White House and the Democratic controlled Congress. Once again, the Democrats gained the initiative.

The prolonged haggling over the budget hurt the Republicans by highlighting the divisions between conservative GOP lawmakers and their party’s President over tax increases.

Staff writers Sara Fritz and Paul Houston contributed to this story.