Runoff to Decide Senate Race in Texas : Politics: Democratic appointee Robert Krueger and GOP state Treasurer Kay Bailey Hutchison will square off in contest for Bentsen’s seat.

In what boiled down to a preliminary bout to eliminate the rest of a crowded field, the two front-runners in a special U.S. Senate election made a strong showing Saturday and advanced to a runoff.

Democrat Robert Krueger, appointed in January by Gov. Ann Richards to fill the seat left vacant when Lloyd Bentsen was named U.S. Treasury secretary, and Kay Bailey Hutchison, the Republican state treasurer, finished atop the field of 24 candidates.

With 70% of the votes counted, Kreuger led with 30% to Hutchinson’s 29%. The nearest challengers were two Republican congressmen, Joe L. Barton of Dallas and Jack Fields of Houston, each with about 13% of the vote.

Since no candidate captured a majority of the votes cast, Krueger and Hutchison will meet in a runoff. The date of the runoff, expected to be about a month from now, will be set by the governor. The Senate term expires at the end of 1994.

The vote Saturday made it clear that Krueger will face a serious battle. Analysts said Hutchison’s strong showing will make her a formidable opponent, and they noted that votes for Republican candidates dominated in the overall number of those cast.

George Christian, a Texas political analyst, said he expected the runoff to end up a virtual dead heat.

“It’s going to come down to a 50-50 race,” he said. “And I expect it’s going to get pretty dirty before it’s all over.”

The Texas seat means a great deal to both political parties. If Hutchison wins, it would give Texas two GOP senators for the first time in modern history. The Democrats need a victory by Krueger to maintain their 57-43 edge over Republicans in the Senate.

From the beginning, political analysts in the state had said that Krueger needed only to keep from losing in the initial balloting because of the edge he had after being appointed to the seat by Richards.

His strategy in the early days of the campaign was to distance himself from the policies of President Clinton by voting against the President’s economic proposals while at the same time trimming his own salary and staff budget.

Krueger also took on a harder edge in the campaign to overcome a reputation of being unwilling to go for the political jugular.

He has run for the Senate twice before. In a brutal 1978 contest, Krueger was defeated by Republican John Tower by less than 13,000 votes. And in 1984, he was the odds-on favorite in the primary but finished third.

Krueger, once a college professor, won a congressional seat in a rural Texas district in 1974. He also won the 1990 race for state railroad commissioner by a landslide.

Hutchison, who was considered the top challenger when she entered the race, weathered a series of attacks in which she was charged with physically abusing her employees at the state treasury.

But those allegations, which she denied, did not seem to raise the eyebrows of the electorate.

Hutchison, who was elected state treasurer in 1990, also was the first Republican woman to be elected to the Texas House. She was a vice chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board in the Gerald R. Ford Administration.