GOP Wins 2 Key Governorships, N.Y. Mayoralty

In a stunning reversal for President Clinton and the Democratic Party, Republicans swept gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey Tuesday, and captured the tight New York City mayoral race.

In Virginia, Republican George F. Allen, a former state legislator and U.S. representative, rang up a commanding victory over Democratic Atty. Gen. Mary Sue Terry. With 99% of the vote counted, Allen had 58% to Terry’s 41%.

In a photo finish, Republican Christine Todd Whitman narrowly defeated incumbent Democrat James J. Florio to become New Jersey’s first woman governor.

With 99% of the New Jersey vote reporting, Whitman led 50% to 48%--32,000 votes out of 2.3 million cast. Florio conceded in a speech just after midnight Eastern time.

In New York City, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by 5 to 1, Republican Rudolph W. Giuliani won in his rematch with Democratic incumbent David N. Dinkins. Early today, Dinkins called Giuliani to concede.

With 100% of the New York vote in, Giuliani led 51% to 48%.

In addition to New York, voters in more than half a dozen other major cities--from Boston and Detroit to Miami and Seattle--selected mayors Tuesday. Also Tuesday voters repealed a gay rights ordinance in Cincinnati and approved a term limits measure in Maine.

The Republican sweep in the major races continued a pattern of GOP gains since Clinton’s victory last November. That run began with a GOP win in last fall’s runoff for a Georgia U.S. Senate seat, continued with victories in the Los Angeles mayoral election and a special election in Texas last spring, and culminated in Tuesday’s sweep of the major races.

“Clearly, Bill Clinton and his policies have hurt Democratic candidates from coast to coast--from Los Angeles to New York, from New Jersey to Texas,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour.

Some Democratic strategists agreed that Tuesday’s results suggested the party could face serious problems next year, when 36 gubernatorial and 34 Senate seats will be at stake.

“We can’t whistle past the graveyard on these things,” said Brian Lunde, former executive director of the Democratic National Committee. “These are very sobering results for national Democrats.”

David C. Wilhelm, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, insisted that the closeness of the races in New York and New Jersey indicated not an anti-Democratic tide, but an “electorate that is searching and skeptical.” But he acknowledged: “There is a lot of skepticism out there and we have got to deal with it in a positive way.”

Particularly worrisome to Democrats was Florio’s loss. The race pivoted on lingering voter disenchantment over the $2.8-billion tax increase Florio pushed through in 1990, after a campaign in which he insisted he did not see the need for new taxes. White House officials, smarting from voter disenchantment over their own larger-than-advertised tax increase, had hoped a Florio victory would indicate voter willingness to forgive politicians who raise taxes.

Instead, the race may have demonstrated the continuing power of anti-tax appeals. According to CNN, exit polls showed that 55% of New Jersey voters Tuesday still considered the tax hike a mistake, while only 41% thought Florio did the right thing.

“You’ve just sent a message right across this country,” Whitman declared in her victory speech.

In each of the most closely watched races, public uneasiness about the nation’s direction and a desire for change remained the driving force. That force--which propelled Clinton to the White House--now seemed to be bearing down on Democrats in a period when they control all the levers of national government.

While Terry publicly distanced herself from the President, both Dinkins and Florio warmly embraced him. But all three Democrats faltered before the same urge for new directions that swept George Bush into retirement last fall.

“Part of the trend that we benefited from last year, the challengers benefited from this year,” said Wilhelm.

That continued demand for new directions was vividly apparent in Virginia, where Allen seized on the change theme. “The days of tax and spend liberalism are over in Virginia,” Allen said in his victory speech. “It is a time for political restructuring in Virginia.”

As the Democratic nominee in a state controlled by Democratic governors for the last 12 years, Terry was seen by many voters as a virtual incumbent.

That boosted Allen, the son of the former Washington Redskins and Los Angeles Rams coach. His campaign stressed the elimination of parole for violent criminals and bucked a national trend toward support of tougher gun control laws by opposing Terry’s call for a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases. He wiped out the huge lead Terry held in the polls last summer.

“He struck a chord on crime that resonated powerfully,” said Barbour. “Where she said the answer to crime was gun control, he said the answer was tougher sentencing . . . building more prisons and getting rid of the lax parole system.”

Once Allen gained momentum, nothing Terry did reversed the tide, not even a late advertising blitz that sought to portray him as a tool of conservative evangelical preachers Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

Particularly gratifying to Republican strategists was Allen’s success at deflecting such attacks even while attracting enthusiastic support from religious conservatives and anti-abortion activists. Polls suggested that Virginians describing themselves as evangelical Christians may have accounted for more than one-third of the voters.

In the attorney general’s contest GOP candidate James S. Gilmore III used strong support from the religious right to defeat Democrat William D. Dolan III. Even Republican lieutenant governor nominee Michael Farris--who has closer ties to religious conservatives than Allen--ran more strongly than expected in a losing bid against Democratic incumbent Donald S. Beyer Jr.

“The Democratic strategy of running against religious conservatives . . . backfired,” said Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition, a political organization founded by Robertson.

The New Jersey gubernatorial race drew particular focus in the White House, because of the parallels between Florio’s situation and Clinton’s. Like Clinton, Florio saw his popularity plummet after pushing through his tax program: At one point in 1990, Florio’s approval rating dropped to just 18%.

Up until the last weeks before the election, Whitman ran an indecisive campaign that faced regular distractions from such controversies as her admission that she failed to pay Social Security taxes on household help.

But deep-seated antipathy toward Florio--particularly his tax increases--kept Whitman afloat, even when she seemed determined to capsize her own boat. Whitman was able to narrow the race in the final weeks with sharp television ads that shifted the focus back to Florio’s record. In the end, views on taxes and crime appeared to be far more important than gender: According to network exit polls, Whitman won a majority of male voters, while Florio captured a majority of women.

None of the other mayoral races reached the volcanic intensity of New York. But several provided their own drama and insights into the forces driving the electorate this year.

In Detroit, although both candidates were black, the election was sharply polarized along racial lines. Dennis Archer, a former Michigan State Supreme Court justice who ran on a platform of cooperation with the white suburbs, led Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Sharon McPhail, who followed a more confrontational style.

In Minneapolis, City Council President Sharon Sayles Belton became the city’s first black mayor, beating John Derus, a white former Hennepin County commissioner, who ran a tough-on-crime campaign.

Elsewhere, mayoral contests appeared likely to reaffirm the recent trend toward the election of relatively non-ideological pragmatists of all races.

In Atlanta, where voters were choosing a successor to retiring Maynard Jackson, the top three contenders were African-Americans who all ran as problem-solvers, minimizing the appeals to racial pride that characterized much of the earlier generation of black urban officials. City Councilman Bill Campbell held a large lead over Fulton County Commissioner Michael Lomax, with City Councilwoman Myrtle Davis trailing. If Campbell does not receive an outright majority he will face Lomax in a Nov. 23 runoff.

In other mayoral elections, acting Mayor Thomas M. Menino became Boston’s first Italian-American mayor, defeating state Rep. James T. Brett. After a vitriolic, but largely issue-less, campaign in Miami, former mayor Steve Clark and Cuban-born Miriam Alonso finished at the top of a six-person field and will meet in a runoff Tuesday.

In Hialeah, Fla., suspended Mayor Raul Martinez was the top vote-getter in a five-way race for mayor Tuesday and advanced to a runoff despite his conviction and 10-year prison sentence for corruption. Pittsburgh voters chose Democratic state Rep. Thomas Murphy.

Only a handful of major initiatives made it onto ballots this year.

Houston voters narrowly rejected a measure that would have imposed zoning controls on the city for the first time, 52% to 48%.

In early returns in Washington state, voters were overwhelmingly approving a measure that would require life imprisonment without parole for criminals convicted of three felonies.

Two tax-related initiatives were tightly contested. One would limit state expenditures by a formula tied to inflation and population growth, and require legislators seeking taxes that exceeded the cap to receive approval from not only two-thirds of the Legislature, but also voters. With 11% of the vote counted, it was leading, 54% to 46%.

The second proposed to roll back nearly $1 billion in tobacco and alcohol taxes approved by the Legislature this year to help pay for a state program to provide health coverage for the uninsured. It would also limit future state revenues to a fixed percentage of state personal income. It was trailing, 52% to 48%.