GOVERNORS: The G.O.P's Big Gain

IN sharp contrast to the presidential race, most battles for the nation's statehouses were decided early and decisively. Republicans entered the election holding 26 governorships to the Democrats' 24; of the 21 statehouses on the line this year, 13 were in Democratic hands, eight held by the G.O.P. When the returns were sorted, the Republicans had gained five governorships, raising their total to 31--more than double their 1960 low of 14 statehouses. The G.O.P. now had control of six of the nation's most populous states (California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania), if only for a while. Governors, after all, are notoriously vulnerable to voter anger, as many of this year's races demonstrated.

The Republican success was not bloodless: two nationally prominent G.O.P. incumbents met defeat at the hands of Democratic unknowns. Rhode Island's John Chafee, a Rockefeller activist seeking his fourth term, and Montana's Tim Babcock, after a third term, were dropped by the only unifying issue of the gubernatorial contest--taxes. Chafee had endorsed a state income-tax increase from a maximum of 5% to 8% in order to bring in $35 million in much-needed revenues. His Democratic rival, Superior Court Justice Frank Licht, 52, countered with a proposed investment tax, and that turned the trick. Babcock opted for a sales tax with no exemption for ranch machinery. "Pay More? What For?" was the slogan that Montana's tough, three-term attorney general, Forrest H. Anderson, 55, used to dump Babcock--and it reflected the voters' mood in at least nine of the state elections. Arkansas' Winthrop Rockefeller, seeking a second term, nearly met a similar fate, but ultimately edged Democrat Marion Crank.

Shattered Tradition. The Republicans scored several notable upsets. Delaware's Charles L. Terry Jr., at 68 the nation's oldest Governor, was defeated by Republican Russell Peterson, 51, who surged ahead after Terry suffered a heart attack. A civic activist and Du Pont employee, Peterson is a rather dull, determined organizer. Arizona's one-eyed Republican Governor Jack Williams, 59, ran a repeat of his 1966 defeat of ex-Governor Sam Goddard, aided by a liquor-board scandal uncovered in the debris of Goddard's earlier regime. Wisconsin's Warren Knowles, 60, who was not favored to retain the governorship following a divorce earlier this year, managed to trounce Democrat Bronson LaFollette, 32, heir to a grand old Badger State name, but a man of little political experience. New Mexico's David Cargo, 39, barely squeaked past Democrat Fabian Chavez in a down-to-the-wire race. On the other hand, such Democrats as Missouri's Warren Hearnes, 45, North Dakota's William L. Guy, 49, Utah's Calvin Rampton, 54, and Kansas' Robert Docking, 43, all won re-election handily.

Perhaps the biggest break with political tradition came in turbulent Puerto Rico, where the ironhanded 28-year reign of Luis Munoz Marin's Popular Democratic Party was rudely shattered by millionaire Luis A. Ferre, 64, a "statehood" Republican whose New Progressive Party was formed only last year. Slight and elegantly tailored, Ferre defeated the P.D.P. candidate Luis Negron Lopez, thanks to a diversion of popular votes to Governor Roberto Sanchez Vilella. Ferre is unabashedly pro-American; the art museum that he founded and funded in his native Ponce was designed to symbolize the interaction of U.S. and Hispanic cultures. When Puerto Rico's economic level reaches that of the poorest mainland state, Ferre has argued, his island will be ripe for statehood: it should soon equal Mississippi.

Other new faces in the statehouses:

sbILLINOIS. Statewide races are usually tests between Democratic Chicago and Republican downstate Illinois, but this year the G.O.P. had a contender who could hold his own in the city: Cook County Board President Richard Ogilvie, 45, who won his current position and a previous term as Cook County Sheriff in Mayor Daley's Democratic fiefdom. A World War II tank commander, whose facial injuries left him with a masklike expression, Ogilvie earned fame as a Mafia-busting U.S. special investigator, a fact that helped him win against the hard law-and-order line of Democratic Incumbent Governor Samuel Shapiro.

sbINDIANA. Republican Edgar D. Whitcomb, 50, is a trim (6 ft., 180 Ibs.) George Romney look-alike whose wife Pat is widely regarded as the prettiest woman on the Indiana political scene. A bomber navigator in World War II, Whitcomb was captured by the Japanese, later wrote a book called Escape from Corregidor, which he distributed by the thousands during his campaign. In his race against Lieutenant Governor Robert L. Rock, the Democratic nominee, conservative Whitcomb promised to veto any rise in state taxes, even though the Indiana treasury is bare.

sbIOWA. A spring storm last April nearly ended Robert D. Ray's political career when a twin-engined private plane in which he was a passenger crashed in an Iowa field. Ray's ankle was shattered in the accident, and the 40-year-old Republican moderate still limps. But his campaign did not. The one-time state G.O.P. chairman moved handily into the spot that existing Governor Harold Hughes had hoped to reserve for the Democratic candidate, State Treasurer Paul Franzenburg.

sbTEXAS. Horn-rimmed glasses and a jaunty Stetson are the trademarks of Conservative Democrat Preston D. Smith, 56. The horn rims belong to the real estate entrepreneur and 18-year veteran of public office who had to work his way through high school at such jobs as picking cotton and pumping gas. The Stetsoned Smith is the campaigning frontiersman who flew to 249 of Texas' 254 counties to shake hands and exude confidence. Horn rims or hat, there was more than enough Smith to defeat Republican Paul W. Eggers.

sbVERMONT. After three terms of liberal leadership under Philip H. Hoff, the only Democratic Governor since 1854, Vermont is back in the Republican column. Leading the restoration is moderate, business-minded Republican Deane C. Davis, 68, chairman of the board of the National Life Insurance Co. of Montpelier. Tweedy, sports-jacketed Davis beat Democratic Lieutenant Governor John J. Daley by bouncing around the state in a bus and offering Vermonters a brand of enlightened fiscal responsibility that included increased spending and higher taxes if needed.

sbWEST VIRGINIA. A campaign helicopter crash two days before the election sent Republican Arch A. Moore Jr., 45, to the hospital. But Moore, who as a World War II infantry sergeant took a machine-gun bullet through the face and jaw, survived with two broken ribs. By the time the campaign was over, it seemed nastier than the crash. Republican charges of Democratic corruption were answered by a libel suit, but Moore was the final winner over former State Democratic Chairman James M. Sprouse.

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