Democrats Hold Ground in Votes Across the South

One year after Republicans scored unprecedented gains across the South, Democrats on Tuesday rebuffed further GOP advances in the region by retaining the Kentucky governorship and effectively holding both houses in the Virginia Legislature.

The results in Kentucky and Virginia surprised many political analysts who had predicted that beleaguered Southern Democrats would take a beating in the handful of elections watched closely for clues about national political trends.

Republicans held their ground in the nation’s only other gubernatorial race as GOP incumbent Kirk Fordice won reelection in Mississippi.

But national Republican leaders had been hoping to do better on the day, especially since the GOP tide of 1994 that gave the party control of Congress had been strongest in the South.

In Virginia, Republicans wanted to make history by taking control of both the state Senate and House of Delegates. That would have made Virginia the first Southern state with an entirely GOP-controlled Legislature since Reconstruction ended in 1876.

Instead, Democrats kept their majority in the House, while in the Senate the GOP had to settle for a 20-20 deadlock. The state’s lieutenant governor, who presides over the chamber, is a Democrat, meaning the party effectively will still control it.

In Kentucky, meanwhile, Republicans were optimistic they would end the 24-year Democratic grip on the governor’s office. But Lt. Gov. Paul Patton took the governor’s post, scoring a 51%-49% win over Republican lawyer Larry Forgy.

Patton had no hesitation about putting a national perspective on his triumph.

“Kentucky has spoken,” he said in his victory speech. “It has said no to [House Speaker] Newt Gingrich and [Senate Majority Leader] Bob Dole. It has said no to cuts in Medicare and school lunches. It has said no to selling our lakes and no to the ‘contract on America.’ ”

Few analysts would go that far. But at the least, the Democratic showing in Kentucky and Virginia provides a boost for a party that has suffered a string of high-profile defeats since winning the White House in 1992. The results also suggest that Democrats may be more competitive in the South next year than had been thought.

Also Tuesday:

* In Washington state, an initiative to allow unlimited casino gambling on the lands of Native American tribes appeared headed for defeat. With more than 50% of the vote counted, it was losing by almost a 3-to-1 margin. The measure gained attention in part because it offered voters an unusual enticement: a 10% share of the gambling proceeds.

* In 17 mostly small to medium cities across the country with local elections, voters also cast ballots in a non-binding presidential primary called CityVote, which listed 21 declared or prospective candidates. The contest’s organizer, former Irvine Mayor Larry Agran, hoped it would force White House contenders to focus more on urban problems. Instead, virtually all the declared candidates ignored CityVote.

As of late Tuesday, with only about 20% of the vote count expected by CityVote, President Clinton was leading the field with 53%. Retired Gen. Colin L. Powell, who is expected to announce today or Thursday whether he will launch a presidential campaign, placed second with 15%.

In the 1994 vote that had fueled Republican hopes for a strong showing Tuesday, the GOP took lower houses in North and South Carolina and state senates in Florida and Tennessee for the first time since Reconstruction. But winning both houses in Virginia, the heart of the Confederacy, would have been a particular coup. Republicans needed to gain just three seats in the 40-member Senate and four in the 100-member House to become the majority in each chamber.

Virginia’s legislative results were a particular blow to Republican Gov. George F. Allen, a young conservative with 1996 vice presidential hopes. Allen mounted highly visible campaigns for GOP candidates throughout the state and had hailed the legislative elections as a chance for voters to continue to promote the Republican agenda he said they chose when they elected him in 1993.

Among the Republican challengers who went down to defeat Tuesday was Sandy Liddy Bourne, daughter of G. Gordon Liddy, the Watergate burglar who is now a conservative talk show host. She was seeking a House of Delegates seat in northern Virginia

Bourne was running against Democratic incumbent Linda (Toddy) Puller, widow of a severely disabled Vietnam War veteran, Lewis B. Puller, who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography in 1992 and committed suicide last year. With most of the votes tallied, Puller was winning 62% of the vote.

In Kentucky, the hard-fought Forgy-Patton race was haunted by the specter of unpopular national stands from both parties.

Patton was hurt early by President Clinton’s decision to support regulation of tobacco as a drug. Tobacco is a mainstay of the state’s economy. Patton has been busily disowning Clinton ever since.

Forgy, meanwhile, first embraced the agenda of congressional Republicans. He said that voters who wanted the “Republican revolution” to continue in Kentucky should vote for him. But as GOP legislators began tackling such controversial issues as curtailing the growth of Medicare, Forgy distanced himself from his party’s national agenda.

In Mississippi, Fordice faced moderate Democrat Dick Molpus, the current secretary of state, in what became an unpredictable and nasty campaign. After amassing a big early lead in the campaign, Fordice gave an unflattering imitation of Molpus’ wife, Sally, at a press conference, immediately drawing the ire of many voters. Local polls had shown that Fordice’s lead had fallen from about 20 percentage points to as low as 5 percentage points by Election Day. Fordice was leading, 55% to 45%, with 90% of the votes counted early today.

At their final debate last week, Molpus threatened to take Fordice “to the woodshed” for insulting his wife. Fordice responded by telling Molpus that he would “whip your ass” and was led away from his challenger after the debate to avoid further confrontation.

Fordice, who urged voters to “never apologize” for racial injustice in old Mississippi but instead to “move forward together,” is best remembered nationally for his comment that the United States is a “Christian nation.” His comment at the 1992 National Governors’ Conference angered many non-Christians.

In his campaign, Molpus called for racial reconciliation.

Times researchers Rob Cioe in Los Angeles and Doug Connor in Seattle contributed to this story.