Brown Captures Connecticut Race in Stunning Upset : Politics: Defeat of front-runner Clinton creates new uncertainty in the Democratic presidential contest. Bush again beats Buchanan, but protest vote lingers.

Former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. scored a stunning upset over Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton in the Connecticut primary Tuesday, engulfing the Democratic presidential race in a new wave of uncertainty and giving Brown a vital boost two weeks before critical primaries in New York and Wisconsin.

Brown’s narrow victory comes just days after Clinton was proclaimed the presumptive Democratic nominee by many of his party’s national leaders. In their eyes, the decision last Thursday by former Sen. Paul E. Tsongas of Massachusetts to suspend his candidacy removed the last major hurdle Clinton faced to claiming the nomination.

Connecticut Democrats, though, clearly were not ready to accept that view. And in a sign of apparent dissatisfaction with both of the remaining active candidates, Tsongas ran a surprisingly strong third in the primary.

With 100% of the vote counted, Brown had 37%, Clinton had 36% and Tsongas had 20%.

In the Republican primary, President Bush again easily defeated challenger Patrick J. Buchanan. With 99% of the GOP vote counted, Bush had 67% and Buchanan had 22%. An uncommitted slate of delegates had 9% and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke had 2%.

Bush has won all of the Republican contests, but the fact that a third of the Connecticut Republicans did not vote for him--a repeat of results in several other states--indicates that he has not quelled the discontent that fueled Buchanan’s candidacy.

In the Democratic race, the outcome represents a serious setback to Clinton’s hopes of bringing the nomination contest to an early halt, uniting his party and focusing his fire on Bush.

A jubilant Brown, who already has shocked pundits who gave his anti-Establishment campaign little chance, Tuesday night described the Connecticut results as an example of “the people taking politics back in their hands.”

He added: “I don’t see it as a victory for me or a defeat for Clinton. I see it as a rising-up of the people of this country.”

Still, Clinton remains the favorite to win the nomination, based on his past performances and the party’s process for accumulating convention delegates. Before the decision in Connecticut--where 53 delegates were at stake--the Arkansas governor had an estimated 965 delegates committed to him, nearly half of the 2,145 needed for nomination. Brown had only 125, while Tsongas had 429.

And even if Brown wins most of the remaining contests, the party’s proportional representation rules will make it difficult for him to overtake his rival as long as Clinton wins a respectable share of the vote.

The party’s rules, in fact, saw Clinton actually win one more delegate than Brown in Connecticut--22 to 21. Tsongas won 10.

Clinton, speaking to supporters at a restaurant in Manhattan, signaled that he planned an aggressive campaign against Brown in New York.

“I think the clear message (of the Connecticut vote) is, we are going to have to fight for this. I always we knew we were going to have to fight for this,” he said.

Saying he was prepared to contrast his plan for the nation’s economic revival against Brown’s, he added: “Now the debate is what kind of change we want, which is exactly the debate I want.”

In a possible preview of the New York campaign, Clinton and Brown squared off Tuesday night on ABC-TV’s “Nightline” program. They agreed on one point--that voter resentment with politics and government-as-usual had been a major force in shaping the Connecticut outcome. But each claimed that he was the best suited to respond to this discontent.

Clinton chided Brown for his past opposition to putting limits on campaign contributions. He also claimed that he was the first of the candidates to criticize the leadership of the national Democratic Party.

But Brown refused to yield his assumed role as the chief agent of reform. He challenged Clinton to agree not to run any paid broadcast commercials in the New York contest and to accept the same $100 ceiling on contributions that Brown has imposed on his own campaign.

“You join me in that, and we will have a reformed Democratic Party that goes to the grass roots,” Brown said.

Exit polling of Connecticut Democrats, conducted for the major networks, indicated that the character question that has plagued Clinton’s candidacy was particularly troublesome to him in the state.

Asked if they believed Clinton had the honesty and integrity to be President, 49% of those interviewed said yes, while nearly as many--46%--said no. A majority of the latter group voted for Brown.

The exit polls also showed a slippage in Clinton’s support from black voters, which had been vital to his previous victories. In last week’s Illinois and Michigan primaries, for instance, he won more than 70% of the black vote. In Connecticut, that figure dipped to 58%, according to the polls.

The drop may have been related to controversy that surrounded a round of golf Clinton played last week at an all-white country club in Little Rock, Ark. Brown blasted Clinton on the issue, saying the governor should explain to the black voters “why he’s at a club playing golf where they can’t.”

The Connecticut results ensure that an intense spotlight will be focused on the Democratic race in New York, in which 244 delegates are at stake.

Paul Tully, political director of the Democratic National Committee, said Brown’s victory provides him with important advantages heading into New York.

“This gives him a very large audience in a state used to hearing a more venturesome range of political ideas,” Tully said. “It will give him a boost in coverage and assure attention to his message.”

New York Democratic Chairman John Marino, who says he is neutral in the race, called the Connecticut results “a minor setback” for Clinton. But he added: “New York is a state he can’t afford to lose, and this increases the chances he can be hurt here.”

Connecticut’s impact should also register in Wisconsin, with 82 delegates at stake. Even before Tuesday’s vote, Brown had been planning a major effort in the state.

“This puts a different cast on the Wisconsin primary,” said Wisconsin Democratic Chairman Jeff Neubauer, a Clinton supporter. “If I had to call it tonight, I would say it looks like the results in Connecticut, with Brown having the momentum.”

Shortly after the outcome of the Republican race became clear, Bush issued a statement from the White House saying: “I want to thank the voters of Connecticut who made it clear today: The answer is less government spending, not more taxes.”

Buchanan, defeated for the 17th straight time by the President, sought to dismiss his loss by calling attention to Bush’s Connecticut roots.

“It’s a state where he grew up. His father was a U.S. senator (representing the state). And the fact that the President only got two-thirds of the vote in the Republican primary in his own home state does not bode well for George Bush,” Buchanan said.

The battle among the Republicans never really was joined. Buchanan, running short of funds and conceding that Bush is headed toward renomination, spent just six hours campaigning in Connecticut last weekend, and he did not air any television or radio commercials in the state.

Connecticut’s Democratic campaign over the last month paralleled the changing course of the national struggle among the contenders. Tsongas, propelled by his victory in the Feb. 18 New Hampshire primary and aided by his New England roots, moved into a 2-1 lead over Clinton in statewide polls, with Brown a distant third.

But the tide began to turn as Clinton racked up victory after victory in the Southern primaries that dominated early March. And his sweep last week of the Illinois and Michigan primaries--the first major contests on neutral ground--caused Connecticut Democratic leaders to rate their race a tossup, with the trend running in Clinton’s direction.

When Tsongas, citing his campaign’s shortage of money, suspended his candidacy last Thursday, the road seemed clear for a big Clinton victory in Connecticut that would give him momentum heading into the New York and Wisconsin primaries.

But Brown, whose advisers had been urging him to concentrate on those two states, decided to take on Clinton in Connecticut.

He continued to bid for blue-collar votes--a strategy that had paid off in a second-place finish in Michigan--and was rewarded with the support of several local labor unions in Connecticut.

Brown also aired a television commercial in Connecticut that stressed his theme that voters should reject forecasts that said Tsongas’ departure from the race established Clinton as the apparent Democratic nominee.

“Washington politicians have picked Bush and Clinton,” the commercial said, capturing the spirit of Brown’s insurgent candidacy. “But Tuesday, you can send the message that we’ve just begun to fight for the soul of our party and the country we love.”

The ad represented a major financial commitment by Brown, given his campaign’s $100 limit on contributions.

Clinton countered with a commercial that derided Brown’s proposal for establishment of a flat 13% income-tax rate, the centerpiece of his economic program. The ad blasted the plan as “a flat-out fraud.”

Both in the commercial and on the stump, Clinton also accused Brown of hypocrisy in his current emphasis on campaign finance reform. Clinton noted that Brown, while he served as chairman of the California Democratic Party in 1990, helped lead the fight against an initiative imposing a $1,000 limit on individual contributions to candidates for state office. The initiative ultimately was ruled unconstitutional.

The Vote in Connecticut

DEMOCRATS

100% of precincts reporting

Dele- Vote % gates Jerry Brown 63,624 37 21 Bill Clinton 60,894 36 22 Paul Tsongas 33,493 20 10 Uncommitted 5,431 3 0

REPUBLICANS 99% of precincts reporting

Dele- Vote % gates George Bush 64,812 67 35 Patrick Buchanan 21,524 22 0 David Duke 2,251 2 0 Uncommitted 8,699 9 0

Times staff writers Thomas B. Rosenstiel and Douglas Jehl contributed to this story.