Election battle up to voters now (11-2-46)

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The Pittsburgh Press (November 2, 1946)

Election battle up to voters now

Polls indicate GOP will win House
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

NEW YORK (UP) – The general election campaign ends today, putting it up to voters in 47 states to decide next Tuesday whether the Democratic Party shall continue in control of Congress.

Polls and surveys indicate that Republicans will win control of the House and that the margin of control either way in the Senate will be close. That foreshadows two years of political stalemate in Washington. With the White House held by one party and either house of Congress controlled by another, the roadblocks against legislative action will be enormous.

There will be a scattering of campaign activity after today. The big push is over. President Truman is back home in Missouri, having set a record of some kind by not making a single campaign speech. Henry A. Wallace, whom he bounced out of his Cabinet for opposing administration foreign policy, has been the most publicized Democratic campaigner.

Goes to New York

Mr. Wallace is coming here this weekend to end his campaign swing with several informal auditorium addresses. Although he was invited to help campaign by the Democratic National Committee, Wallace still is sharpshooting administration foreign policy.

But most embarrassing to the Democrats has been the loud support of American Communists. Party spokesmen ignored the Communists for a while. But the Republican fire got too hot, first in New York State and then generally in the industrial areas.

James M. Mead, Democratic candidate for governor, and Herbert H. Lehman, Democratic candidate for the Senate, were compelled to disavow their New York Communist supporters. This week Chairman Robert E. Hannegan of the Democratic National Committee went on a nationwide broadcast to shoo the Communists off the Democratic bandwagon.

Urges Reds to vote for GOP

Mr. Hannegan invited the Communists to vote for Republican candidates. The Communists promptly announced they would ignore Mr. Hannegan, more in sorrow than in anger.

“Lehman said he didn’t want Communist votes,” said the Communist newspaper, The Daily Worker. “Hannegan went further and urged the Communists to vote for the Republican Party.

“It is fortunate for these misguided gentlemen that the Communists are too devoted to the cause of halting the Tafts, Hoovers and Deweys of America to place their private injuries above the common welfare.”

So the Communists will vote Democratic in New York State, and elsewhere, according to their party organ. Here their primary objective is to prevent re-election of Gov. Thomas E. Dewey. They know if Mr. Dewey is elected with a whopping majority on Tuesday he will have taken a long step toward the Republican presidential nomination in 1948.

Mr. Dewey’s most optimistic supporters claim today that he will be re-elected Tuesday by a majority of 700,000 votes. Mr. Dewey’s close associates suggest they would be content with 500,000 – and no wonder. There is a touch of gloom around Mr. Mead’s gubernatorial campaign headquarters.

Nationally the Republicans are driving to gain a minimum of 26 seats in the House and 10 in the Senate. Present alignment is:

SENATE:
Democrats 56
Republicans 39
Progressive 1

HOUSE:
Democrats 236
Republicans 192
Progressive 1
American Labor 1
Vacant 5

One Senate seat and three House seats were filled – all Republican – by Maine which held its election on September 9.

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The Pittsburgh Press (November 3, 1946)

DEMOCRATS FIGHT FOR HOUSE
Voting may shatter New Deal coalition

Republicans aim fire at Truman
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

NEW YORK, Nov. 2 (UP) – The first post-war general election campaign ended tonight with the Democratic Party in a back-to-the-wall effort to hold control of Congress.

Election day is Tuesday in all states except Maine, which voted September 9.

Democrats have been hard hit by the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He led the party to seven successive political triumphs culminating in his own election to a fourth presidential term in 1944.

Coalition shaken

The New Deal-Democratic coalition he created was shaken and may be badly shattered by Tuesday’s polling. Political observers rate desire for a change as a prime factor. Republican congressional campaigners have centered their fire on the administration. They have sought to put President Truman on political trial.

He has taken no public part in the campaign, thereby departing from Mr. Roosevelt’s free-swinging campaign practices.

Shortages of food and materials, aggravated by a mid-campaign scarcity of meat, forced the administration to abandon its hold-the-line price control policies. The next Congress is expected to bury the ghost of OPA, although some degree of rent control seems likely to continue.

Wallace campaigns

The campaign was fought on domestic issues except for an interlude during which Henry A. Wallace as secretary of commerce opened public fire on Mr. Truman’s foreign policies. The president acknowledged that Mr. Wallace spoke with his consent and approval.

But a burst of criticism grew into a clamor of protest, apparently accompanied by a threat of resignation from Secretary of State James F. Byrnes. To keep Mr. Byrnes and to maintain the bipartisan nature of his foreign policy, Mr. Truman was compelled to remove Mr. Wallace from the Cabinet.

Mr. Wallace is a power in the left-wing elements of the New Deal-Democratic coalition. Conservative Democrats wanted him banned from the campaign. But Democratic National Committee Chairman Robert E. Hannegan insisted that Mr. Wallace was needed. He and Sen. Claude Pepper of Florida, also a sharp critic of administration policies both foreign, and domestic, have been among the most active Democratic campaigners this fall.

Charge Red alliance

Republican campaigners have sought to blister the Democrats for their alliances with the extreme left-wing of American politics, notably the Communists. Democrats ignored the charges during early campaign weeks. But local and national spokesmen were compelled finally to repudiate Communist support.

The Communists, however, refused to be brushed off. They ended the campaign whooping it up for selected Democratic candidates, especially in New York State.

Estimates of the number of votes likely to be cast Tuesday vary from 34 to 40 million. The total vote in the 1944 Presidential election was 47,968,661.

To be elected Tuesday in addition to thousands of local and minor officials are:

  • 35 U.S. senators for terms beginning January 3.
  • 432 members of the House of Representatives for terms beginning the same day.
  • 33 governors.

Need 26 seats

To win control of the House of Representatives, the Republicans must make a net gain of 26 seats. To win the Senate they need a net gain of 10.

The congressional party alignment as the campaign closes is as follows:

SENATE:
Democrats 56
Republicans 38
Progressive 1

HOUSE:
Democrats 236
Republicans 192
Progressive 1
American Labor Party 1
Vacant 5

Of the contested Senate seats, 24 now are held by Democrats, 10 by Republicans and one by a Progressive. The Progressive, Sen. Robert M. LaFollette of Wisconsin, is not a candidate for re-election, having been defeated for renomination as a Republican.

Won House in 1931

Sixteen states holding gubernatorial elections now have Democratic governors and 17 have Republican governors. Among the 48 states there are now 25 Democratic governors and 23 Republican governors.

Democrats took control of the House of Representatives in 1931 when the 72nd Congress was first organized after the 1931 general elections. They won control of the Senate in 1932 and have controlled Congress ever since.

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GOP vote likely in Delaware

By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer

DOVER, Delaware, Nov. 2 – When through fields of clover they drive, up to Dover and other polling places in this state next Tuesday, they’ll probably elect a Republican, John J. Williams, to the U.S. Senate seat now held by that fire-breathing New Dealer, Sen. James M. Tunnell.

It is no cinch, but if Mr. Williams is not elected it will confound political seers and upset an off-year election pattern that has run here for 25 years.

The Delaware Democrats seem ineffective when a President is not being chosen. The Republicans even won here in the 1934, 1938 and 1942 elections of the Roosevelt era.

No match on platform

Some Delaware politicians say that if the Republicans had not reached into the Sussex County farmlands to name a grain and feed dealer generally unknown throughout the state they would win easily.

Mr. Williams is no match for Sen. Tunnell on the platform, but the anti-Democratic trend that is felt throughout the country is felt here, too, and so the odds seem against the incumbent.

Became New Dealer

The white-haired and sharp-tongued Mr. Tunnell as senator has been something of a surprise to the people of his own state. His background was conservative. But he has become a rabid New Dealer.

In wartime, Wilmington had large shipyards employing 16,000 workers. They were CIO and pro-Democrat. But these yards have only a few hundred working today, and some conservative Democrats who haven’t been strong for the New Deal may stay home or vote Republican.