Central States
JR., WILLIAM K. WYANT
CENTRAL STATES Democrats gaining By William K. Wyant Jr. St. Louis In 1952, the group of five Central states that includes Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska favored the candidacy of...
...In the opinion of analyst Trask, Republican loss of rural support has not been offset by gains in the cities and among Negro voters...
...Louis and Kansas City...
...Some say also that R. M. (Spike) Evans, former Governor of the Federal Reserve Board, is making an excellent race against Hickenlooper...
...In Missouri, there seems to be no doubt that the trend bespeaks a Democratic victory...
...The stale went heavily Democratic in the 1954 off-year election...
...Missouri has been described as a cross-section of the United States...
...Some parts are Southern, some typically Midwestern...
...Louis, however, Stevenson generates the old 1952 enthusiasm and efforts on his behalf are visible at every hand...
...Hoegh proposed an ambitious and forward-looking program that cost money and necessitated tax increases...
...Missouri farmers have been reported as showing more real enthusiasm for Senator Estes Kefauver, Stevenson's running mate, than for the former Governor of Illinois...
...Louis In 1952, the group of five Central states that includes Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska favored the candidacy of Dwiglit D. Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon...
...Observers who have traveled with the candidates think Kansas and Nebraska are safely Republican and that Eisenhower can count on the 14 electoral votes of these two states, together with something like the usual clean Republican sweep in the Senate and House of Representatives and in the Governorships...
...This has been aggravated by three years of serious drought and by declining farm prices...
...The long and short of it appears to be that the Democrats could take Iowa and pick up another Senate seat...
...The remark sometimes is heard that the ticket would have done better if Kefauver had been the Presidential candidate...
...The Post-Dispatch is backing Stevenson and the St...
...A neighbor of this writer is an old-line Southern Democrat, an attorney, who predicted Truman's victory in 1948 as well as Eisenhower's in 1952...
...Louis Post-Dispatch, points out that Eisenhower's 1952 triumph in Missouri was a personal one, since he was the only Republican to win a statewide majority...
...Missouri and Iowa cast their electoral votes for Harry S. Truman and Allien Barkley...
...Among middle-class intellectuals in areas like St...
...This represented a major change from 1948, when Arkansas...
...They are supremely confident that Missouri will go Democratic this time, taking 13 electoral votes from the Republican count...
...Illinois and Ohio, to win the White House with 351 electoral votes to 180 for the Republicans...
...In the coming Presidential election, the Republicans are expected to lose some of their 1952 gains in the five states under consideration...
...Time did not think Hoegh's troubles would affect President Eisenhower's popularity or that of Senator Bourke Hickenlooper...
...Not everybody liked that...
...Of the five, only Arkansas went for Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman...
...But other observers think Stevenson has a chance in Iowa, depending somewhat on what happens to rainfall, corn and hog prices in the next few weeks...
...In the case of traditionally Republican Iowa, the 1948 switch to Truman reflected dissatisfaction with the farm policies of a Republican-dominated Congress...
...By his reckoning, the Democrats are going to lose New York this year but take 28 other states, including California...
...Some citizens, fascinated by politics, are mak ing their own private estimates of the situation...
...Rural, urban and industrial problems are part of the microcosm...
...Beginning in 1953, there has been a decline of Republican strength in rural Missouri...
...Herbert A. Trask, experienced state political correspondent of the St...
...Democrats regained two Congressional seats that were lost in 1952...
...Democrats consider Arkansas, traditionally Democratic, in the bag...
...My friend insists that there is a basic Democratic trend which most polls do not reflect...
...He voted for Eisenhower, but now supports Stevenson...
...Even so enthusiastically Eisenhower-minded a publication as Time magazine concedes that Iowa's young Republican Governor, Leo Hoegh, is in trouble out there in his race with the Democratic candidate...
...Nobody really knows, of course, what is going In happen...
...The other three states have a gloomy or doubtful prognosis from the Administration's viewpoint...
...Eisenhower won in 1952 by 30.000 votes—carrying outstate areas by 105,000 to overcome Stevenson leads in Democratic St...
...In the case of Iowa, with 10 votes, it is believed the decision could go either way...
...Louis Globe-Democrat favors Eisenhower, so voters here are not afflicted with the "one-party press" that prevails in some parts of the United States...
...Herschel C. Loveless of Ottumwa...
Vol. 39 • October 1956 • No. 44
