Wofford Wins Easily in Pennsylvania Upset : Elections: In a rebuke to President, Republican Thornburgh is defeated in Senate race. Mississippi elects GOP governor.

In a stinging rebuke to President Bush, underdog Democratic Sen. Harris Wofford Tuesday scored a dramatic upset against Republican challenger Dick Thornburgh in Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate special election by exploiting voter discontent with Washington in general and White House domestic policies in particular.

With 93% of precincts reporting, Wofford had 1,717,903 or 56%, to Thornburgh’s 1,372,187 or 44%.

The lopsided result was probably the most significant piece of good news for Democrats nationally since the U.S. triumph in the Persian Gulf War last spring sent Bush’s standing in opinion polls soaring and cast a cloud over Democratic hopes of defeating him in 1992.

Meanwhile, in Mississippi conservative Republican Kirk Fordice defeated Democratic Gov. Ray Mabus to become the state’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction.

“I think this resonates across the country,” said Virginia Sen. Charles Robb, chairman of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, which helped put Wofford over the top by footing the bill for nearly $1-million worth of television commercials.

Robb pointed out that Wofford had sought to make the campaign a referendum on Bush’s policies, by emphasizing Thornburgh’s role as chairman of the White House domestic policy council when he had served in Bush’s Cabinet as his attorney general. “If this isn’t a wake-up call (for the President) I don’t know what is,” he said.

But Robb added: “I think in a way it’s a wake-up call for all incumbents,” a sobering point for Democrats who control both the House and the Senate with top-heavy majorities.

Paul Tully, the Democratic Party’s national political director, said “we think the White House must have got the message even before the votes were counted.” He cited Bush’s abrupt decision Tuesday to cancel a 10-day trip to Asia and Australia, scheduled to begin Nov. 27. The White House announced that the trip had been scuttled shortly before the polls closed in Pennsylvania.

“I think I was just lucky to be the messenger,” Wofford said Tuesday night. “People want action from Washington to help working families. This was time for action. I want to go down as an agent of action and change.”

Thornburgh, addressing supporters in Pittsburgh shortly before midnight, said he suffered a reversal but not defeat. “Defeat can only come in the soul, and my soul’s alive and kicking tonight,” he said.

He said the results showed that people are concerned about the economy, health care and other quality-of-life issues. “Sen. Wofford did a superior job of communicating his concerns to the people of Pennsylvania, and I extended my congratulations to him on that and I wish him well.”

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said the election would send “a very strong message” to the White House. “There are many, many domestic issues that have to be faced. I think this tells (President Bush) what a very major state is thinking.”

“This isn’t a victory of a single candidate. It’s the triumph of an idea whose time has come,” Wofford declared to a ballroom packed with men and women, black and white, old and young, after Thornburgh conceded defeat.

“It’s time for America to look out for the majority of American people. It’s time to take care of our own--our own people and our own problems.”

Wofford, who was named to the Senate post last May to fill the vacancy created by the death of Republican Sen. John Heinz in a plane crash, had nevertheless campaigned as an outsider critical of congressional excesses and privileges. He made much of his vote against the recent Senate pay raise and even turned the extra money back to charity.

And to dramatize his push for national health insurance, the centerpiece of his domestic agenda, Wofford introduced a bill to cancel free health privileges for members of Congress until they enacted some form of health coverage for the public at large.

Still, it appeared that next to Thornburgh, Bush was the biggest loser in the campaign.

“This is a referendum on the domestic policies of the Bush Administration,” Wofford said in an interview 10 days before the election. “That’s what’s on people’s minds. They generally support what Bush does overseas, but on the domestic front, more and more people feel that government is failing.”

GOP pollster Fred Steeper attributed the outcome to “a combination of things--national health insurance, the recession, and a desire for change, capped off by the public’s desire to have more attention paid to domestic issues.” The result means, he added, “that the domestic agenda will be an important issue in the 1992 campaign.”

Meanwhile, in the only two gubernatorial contests on the ballot in this off-year election, the Democratic lieutenant governor won in Kentucky, while Mabus’ loss in Mississippi indicated that Democratic incumbents could also be in for a tough time next year.

Kentucky Lt. Gov. Brereton C. Jones defeated Republican Rep. Larry J. Hopkins in the contest to succeed incumbent Democrat Gov. Wallace Wilkinson, who was barred from seeking another term. With 99% of precincts reporting, Jones had 527,471 votes, or 65%, to Hopkins’ 288,471, or 35%.

In Mississippi, with 99% of the precincts reporting, Fordice, a construction company president from Vicksburg making his first bid for public office, had 356,250 or 51%. Democratic incumbent Mabus had 330,347, or 48%.

Like the more publicized gubernatorial contest still under way in neighboring Louisiana between Republican David Duke and Democrat Edwin W. Edwards, race played an important role in the Mississippi campaign. Fordice, 57, said he opposed racial quotas, pushed a voucher system that would allow a choice of schools, and favored workfare over welfare. Mabus counted on strong support from black voters, who make up about a third of the state’s electorate, and attacked Fordice as someone who did not understand the state’s needs.

In other signs of anti-incumbency, Houston Mayor Kathy Whitmire was turned out of office after four terms, running third in a three-way race, and Republicans gained control of the New Jersey Legislature for the first time in two decades.

But it was the special election in Pennsylvania that dominated national attention. The race was widely viewed as the most significant test yet of voter reaction to the state of the economy since the onset of the recession last year and the fading of hopes for a recovery this fall.

The Pennsylvania race also attracted attention because of Wofford’s aggressive populist rhetoric. Foreshadowing tactics that Democrats are expected to use in their bid to regain the White House next year, Wofford accused Bush of neglecting domestic needs while he pursued foreign affairs.

Adding drama to the contest was the fact that the 65-year-old Wofford, appointed to the vacancy by Democratic Gov. Robert P. Casey, had never run for public office before and was not well-known in the state. As a result, he seemed to be a sort of Democratic David pitted against a Republican Goliath, in the person of the 59-year-old Thornburgh, who had served two terms as Pennsylvania governor from 1978 to 1986 and was closely identified with Bush.

Starting off nearly 45 percentage points behind Thornburgh in opinion polls, Wofford had closed the gap by last week and turned the race into what amounted to a dead heat on election day.

“It was 46 to 46 when we stopped tracking on (last) Wednesday,” Wofford campaign manager Paul Begala said. But Begala claimed that Wofford still had the momentum, citing the large turnouts for rallies in the campaign’s closing days.

“We had 400 people waiting to hear him at Greensburg (in western Pennsylvania) at midnight on Saturday, and the temperature was 26 degrees,” Begala said.

On Monday, in downtown Philadelphia, his hometown, Wofford told another sizable crowd: “It’s time to push the forces of greed out of the corridors of power.”

The “corridors of power” phrase initially had been used by Thornburgh in his announcement speech to underline his familiarity with Washington, where he had run the Justice Department for both Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bush. But the words later became a hallmark of Wofford’s campaign rhetoric as he sought to turn Thornburgh’s supposed advantage against him.

By campaign’s end, the resentful mood of the electorate had come to be the dominant and decisive factor in the Pennsylvania race, although observers were uncertain which side would benefit most from the negative climate.

Thornburgh likened Wofford’s proposals to a health plan that he claimed had recently been abandoned by the Soviet Union and said it proved that his foe was “out of sync with the times.” Thornburgh put forward his own ideas for cutting health costs by making doctors and hospitals compete for business and limiting the legal liability of doctors for malpractice.

In other races Tuesday:

Republican state legislator George Allen was elected to the House from Virginia, and Democrat Lucien Blackwell won a four-way race to succeed former Rep. William Gray III in Philadelphia.

Former prosecutor Stephen Goldsmith, a Republican, was elected mayor in Indianapolis. Kurt Schmoke won his second term as Baltimore’s mayor, and Ray Flynn his third in Boston.

Attorney Bob Lanier and state Rep. Sylvester Turner, who could be Houston’s first black mayor, won spots in a runoff Tuesday. Incumbent Kathy Whitmire, elected in 1982, lost in the three-way, nonpartisan race.

Key Election Results Pennsylvania Senate race: 93% of vote counted Sen. Harris Wofford (D): 1,717,903 (56%) Dick Thornburgh (R): 1,372,187 (44%) Mississippi governor: 99% of vote counted Kirk Fordice (R): 356,250 (51%) Gov. Ray Mabus (D): 330,347 (47%) Kentucky governor: 99% of vote counted Lt. Gov. Brereton Jones (D): 527,471 (65%) Rep. Larry J. Hopkins (R): 288,471 (35%) Washington state ballot initiatives: 56% of vote counted Term limits Yes: 320,030 (47%) No: 359,834 (53%) Legalized euthanasia Yes: 311,867 (45%) No: 373,851 (55%) Abortion rights guarantees Yes: 334,329 (49%) No: 349,961 (51%) Property tax rollback Yes: 267,968 (40%) No: 395,086 (60%) S.F. MAYOR’S RACE: Agnos headed for runoff. A3

LOCAL ELECTIONS: B1, B4-B5