KEY SENATE RACES

Of the 33 U.S. Senate seats up for election on Nov. 4, 19 are now held by Republicans, 14 by Democrats. Of the Democratic seats, these eleven seem safe: Florida, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Washington (Democrat Edmund Muskie unseated Republican Senator Fred Payne in Maine's September election). But Republican incumbents are breathing fairly easy only in four states: Delaware, Nebraska, North Dakota and Ohio. The tough Senate scraps:

Arizona: In the campaign most like a personal grudge fight, Democratic Governor Ernest McFarland, 64, runs a fifty-fifty chance of getting revenge upon dashing, right-wing Republican Barry Goldwater, 49 (TIME, Sept. 29), who upset Senator McFarland in 1952 and thus ended his career as Senate majority leader.

California: The G.O.P. civil war promises Democratic victory: latest polls show once-popular liberal Republican Governor Goodwin J. Knight, 61, trailing considerably behind his Senate opponent, lesser-known northern California Congressman Clair Engle, 47, right-wing Democrat.

Connecticut: Incumbent Republican William Purtell, 61, full-voiced, energetic, up-from-the-tenements screw manufacturer, and Democrat Thomas J. Dodd, 51, suave, quick-witted ex-FBI man, lawyer and wheelhorse Democrat, have hit nearly all of Connecticut's 169 cities and towns in handshaking campaigns. Eisenhower Republican Purtell points to his voting record, hits hard at union bossism. Middle-Road Democrat Dodd criticizes Republican foreign policy, has strong support from labor's Committee on Political Education. The outcome may hinge on the size of Democratic Governor Abraham Ribicoff's re-election victory.

Indiana: Running for the seat of retiring William Jenner, Republican Governor Harold Handley, 48, onetime coal shoveler (at 25-c- an hour) and former (1953-56) lieutenant governor, is in the hot seat. Issues: unemployment (mostly around South Bend), high taxes (raised in 1957), highway scandals (during the administration of Handley's predecessor, George Craig), right-to-work (last fortnight Handley went all out for right-to-work). Handley is throwing the book at his opponent, Evansville Mayor R. (for Rupert) Vance Hartke, 39, accusing him of running a corrupt administration in his home town and of being a tool of U.A.W.'s Walter Reuther. Newspaper polls show Hartke ahead, but Handley gaining fast and within overtaking distance.

Maryland: Against a Democratic Party unified and ostentatiously campaigning as a single slate for the first time in twelve years, nice but lackluster Republican Incumbent J. Glenn Beall, 64, is hard pressed. Beall has the support of Baltimore's powerful Sun newspapers, has a quiet person-to-person effectiveness among Maryland's Baltimore-suspicious rural voters. His Democratic opponent, Baltimore's eleven-year Mayor Tommy D'Alesandro, 55, has weathered scandal and long odds to win every one of his 23 campaigns in 32 years of professional politics, has strong city strength and is hanging on the coattails of popular Democratic candidate for Governor Millard Tawes to pull up his back-country margins. Only ticket-splitters can save Beall.

Michigan: Incumbent Republican Charles Potter, 42, legless World War II veteran, was elected three times to the House, swept into the Senate in the Eisenhower landslide of 1952. Now he is the only remaining major G.O.P. officeholder in a state that has turned steadily toward the U.A.W.-dominated Democratic Party of Governor G. Mennen ("Soapy") Williams. His opponent: Soapy Williams' Lieutenant Governor Phillip Hart, 45, World War II infantryman (Purple Heart), who is married to plane-piloting Heiress Jane Briggs (Briggs Manufacturing Co.). Potter can win only by convincing enough of the state's 500,000 auto workers that he is a better friend than Hart.

Minnesota: Democrat-Farmer-Labor Representative Eugene McCarthy, 42, a onetime economics professor at Minnesota's St. John's University, and five-term liberal Democratic Congressman (St. Paul), has been leading for weeks in his tough, highly organized drive to unseat Senator Ed Thye, 62, veteran Stassenite ex-Governor and Eisenhower Republican. Issues helping the D.F.L.: unemployment near the alltime high and farmers who still blame Republicans for hard times, though farm prices are up an overall 5% from last year. Key G.O.P. asset: Ed Thye's well-known name, political experience, plainspoken, homely approach. Latest local polls rate McCarthy ahead of Thye (50% to 45%), but knowing Minnesotans believe Thye will squeeze through.

Nevada: Isolationist Republican Senator George ("Molly") Malone, 68, has always won with help from bitterly split Democrats. This time Democrats are generally united behind Las Vegas City Attorney Howard Cannon, 46, and Molly is on his own. For Cannon to beat Malone would be a real upset--and he may do it.

New Jersey: For the seat of retiring H. Alexander Smith, 78, ten-term liberal Republican Congressman Robert Winthrop Kean, 65, son of one U.S. Senator and nephew of another, carries the family banner against Harrison Arlington Williams Jr., 38, onetime (1953-56) Congressman. In the Democratic primary, Governor Bob Meyner was credited with a personal victory for pushing Williams through to the Senate candidacy ahead of Hoboken Mayor John Grogan, but the victory left Hudson County bosses eager to cut Williams' throat. And now even Meyner gives the lagging Williams only lukewarm support.

New York: The biggest load carried by New York's Democratic Governor Averell Harriman in his gubernatorial battle against Republican Nelson Rockefeller was laid on at the convention when Tammany Boss Carmine De Sapio overrode the Harriman forces (TIME, Sept. 8) and dictated the nomination of the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate: five-term New York County District Attorney Frank Hogan, 56. Yet the taint of bossism has somehow not rubbed off on Candidate Hogan. The old D.A. is running so much stronger than Fellow Democrat Harriman in powerful New York City that some skeptics wonder whether Boss De Sapio may not be teaching Harriman a fateful lesson on who's boss. Hogan's New York City strength gives him the edge over Republican Candidate Kenneth Keating, 58, silver-haired, six-term upstate Congressman who, even with powerful help from Ike and Nixon, is not getting across in his campaigning. Democrat Hogan is the favorite.

Pennsylvania: Philadelphia's only Republican eight-term Congressman, Hugh D. Scott Jr., 57, onetime (1948-49) chairman of the Republican National Committee, is campaigning for the Senate against Democratic Governor George Leader, 40. An Eisenhower Republican ("I was born a conservative and have become increasingly liberal"), he has his hands full defending the G.O.P. from blame for the recession (450,000 unemployed, dying mill and coal towns). But George Leader lacks important newspaper support (all three Pittsburgh dailies, for example, split endorsements between Republican Scott and Pittsburgh's Democratic Mayor Dave Lawrence, running for Governor), has antagonized blocs of fellow Democrats while Governor, has irritated voters by trying to push through a state wage tax. Still, if Lawrence leads big, Leader could follow him to victory.

Rhode Island: Peppery Democratic Senator John O. Pastore, 51, beat Providence Republican Lawyer Bayard Ewing, 42, by 39,000 in 1952, even while Ike was carrying Rhode Island by 8,000. This time Pastore faces Ewing again, but the anvil around his neck is his running mate, Governor Dennis Roberts, who stirred up bitter resentment in 1956 with his litigious election victory over popular Republican Christopher Del Sesto. Roberts, running again against Del Sesto, could conceivably drag John Pastore down with him.

Utah: A three-way battle for the Senate has thrown the state into utter confusion. Running for reelection: white-thatched Ikeman Arthur V. Watkins, 71. Running on the Democratic ticket: New Dealing Frank E. Moss, 47, county attorney (Salt Lake). Running on the Independent ticket--and flooding Republican hearts with apprehension: rabid right-wing Republican ex-Governor J. (for Joseph) Bracken Lee, 59. Democrat Moss, fighting Watkins and Lee together, is running a poor third. Mild-mannered Arthur Watkins leads, but dares not rest.

Vermont: In 102 years, Vermont has never elected a top Democratic state official, Representative or Senator, and has never cast its electoral vote for a Democratic presidential candidate. This year the persistent report is that Republican Representative Winston L. Prouty, 52, is in trouble for the Senate because of Republican apathy. Democrats have an attractive candidate in South Burlington Lawyer Frederick Fayette, 47. If Vermont should do the inconceivable and vote Democratic, all bets may be off for Republicans everywhere.

West Virginia: Republicans, who took over the state government in 1956 for the first time since 1933, have the distinction of trying to defend two Senate seats. Incumbent G.O.P. Senator Chapman ("Chappy") Revercomb, 63, who served one Senate term (1943-48) before he was elected in 1956 to fill out the term of the late Harley Kilgore, is a handsome grandfather, a tireless, bassoon-throated campaigner, a conservative flailing at apathetic Republican voters. His opponent is conservative, too, but fast-moving, breezy Robert C. Byrd, 40, father of two girls (aged 21 and 17), is hard to beat. A former grocer and three-term Congressman, he shrewdly turns on the corn at country meetings, singing and playing the fiddle (Bile Them Cabbages Down), recites inspirational poetry (God Give Us Men), advocates old-age pensions for 60-year-olds. Republicans are circulating a letter written by Byrd in 1946 in which he mentioned membership in--and praise for--the Ku Klux Klan, and Byrd neither denies it nor apologizes for it.

The other Republican incumbent: Banker John Hoblitzell, 45, 1956 campaign manager for popular young (35) Republican Governor Cecil Underwood, who was appointed by Underwood to the seat left vacant early this year by the death of Democrat Matt Neely. Hoblitzell is energetic and friendly, but he is also blunt and only a so-so campaigner, admits that he has not cracked the barrier laid out by his Democratic opponent, Glad-Hander Jennings Randolph. At 56, Randolph has served seven terms in Congress, is now a public-relations man for Capital Airlines, rates as one of the state's most effective speakers, has conservative Democratic backing. The Hoblitzell forces are despondent, and private polls agree that they should be. Republican Revercomb is hard pressed by Byrd.

Wisconsin: The G.O.P. rates Democratic Senator Bill Proxmire's seat as one it could grab away from the Democrats. Reason No. 1: Tireless Bill Proxmire, 42, elected to Joe McCarthy's seat last year, has turned out to be an inept Senator. His proposed measures for licking the recession would have cost the country $23 billion by G.O.P. estimate and $8.7 billion by his own (he says his other waste-cutting, tax-loophole-plugging bills would more than make up the deficit). Reason No. 2: The G.O.P. managed at its state convention last May to paper over the long, debilitating feud between Taft and Eisenhower factions, settled on a compromise candidate named Roland J. Steinle. 62, a former state supreme court justice who had been out of politics for years and had few enemies. But in the campaign's heat Steinle turned out to be 1) ineffective on the stump; 2) too conservative for some Ikemen; 3) too little known statewide, even though his Catholicism might pick up votes in Polish wards of Milwaukee. Prognosis: hardworking, handshaking Proxmire should hold off the G.O.P. challenge on a reduced majority.

Wyoming: New York Liberal Eleanor Roosevelt has conducted a national fund-raising drive for Wyoming University History Professor Gale McGee, 43, against Republican Senator Frank Barrett, 65, but the odds are that Barrett, backed by Wyoming's conservative oil, cattle and sheep men, will be winner.

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