Good Weather for Nye

On the night before election day it rained 3.07 inches in Crosby, North Dakota. Next day rain still fell. In many a western county, where North Dakota farmers were isolated by impassable mud, no vote was cast. This was the best possible weather for Gerald P. Nye, the slickest isolationist in the U.S. Senate. .

In last week's three-cornered Republican primary, Gerald Nye put up the toughest fight of his 18-year career to hold his Senate seat (TIME, June 19). Among city voters, his strongest competition was able Lynn U. Stambaugh, international-minded Fargo lawyer and onetime National Commander of the American Legion. But most of North Dakota's decisive rural vote was slated to go to Congressman Usher L. Burdick, 65, an isolationist who had learned better. The downpour which kept farmers from the polls was rain from heaven to Gerald Nye, who gathered in 38,082 votes. Stambaugh, contrary to most North Dakota dopesters, made a surprisingly strong race; he got 37,129 votes. Burdick, stuck in the deep sludge, got 34,997. Unless North Dakota's some 8,000 yet-uncompleted absentee soldier ballots reject him, Gerald Nye is once more the Republican nominee for U.S. Senator.

But he still has a fight ahead. Next November he faces the state's popular, third-term Democratic Governor: tall, stooped John Moses. And some 60,000 Republicans, roughly two-thirds of all the state's GOP primary voters, had testified at the 'polls last week that they are anti-Gerald Nye.

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