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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 8, 1972)
Democrats maintain control of Congress House seats Democrat Republican Elected 147 199 Leading 33 29 New Total 180 228 Present 179 256 Repns. won 15 Dem. seats, leading for 9 Dem. seats. Dems won 8 Repn. seats, leading for 5 Repn. seats. Senate seats Democrat Republican Elected 14 14 Leading 2 2 Holdovers 26 41 New Total 42 57 Present 45 55 Repns. won 3 Deni, seats, leading for 1 Dem. seat. Dems. won 4 Repn. seats, leading for 1 Repn. seat. By JOHN HALL WASHINGTON DPI — Democrats fought to retain control of Congress in Tuesday’s election against faint Republican hopes that a presidential landslide would give them control of both the House and Senate for the first time in 18 years. With all 435 seats in the House of Representatives at stake, 44 were won by the Democrats and 7 by the Republicans in the early counting. In the Senate, 33 of the 100 seats were up for grabs. Forty-one Democrats and 26 Republicans will return to the 93rd Congress regardless of Tuesday’s balloting. Republicans pinned their hopes for a takeover on the coattails of President Nixon, but that possibility was considered a longshot both for the House and for the Senate. Among those winning re-election without opposition were four powerful Democratic committee chairmen in the House — Wilbur Mills, Ark., Ways and Means; W.R. Poage, Tex., Agriculture; Edward Hebert, La., Armed Services; and Wright Patman, Tex., Banking and Currency. House Democratic Leader Hale Boggs, still missing in Alaska, and Democratic Whip Thomas O’Neill of Massachusetts both were re-elected y/ithout opposition. All these officeholders and others would lose their jobs if Democrats lost control of Congress. The majority party organizes each house, selects the committee chairmen and controls the flow of legislation to the floor. Democrats have been in control of both houses since 1954. Except for four years. they hav6 had the majority since 1932. Democrats in the last Congress had a 10 vote edge in the Senate — 55 to 45. This meant Republicans need only a net gain of five seats to win control, providing Vice President Spiro Agnew wins re-election and casts the tie-breaking vote on organizational control in the next session. However, only 14 of the seats to be filled are Democratic and 19 are Republicans. Consequently, the Democrats needed to win only 10 of the contested seats to guarantee control of the Senate, while the Republicans must win at least 24. On top of this, several of the 19 Republican seats were threatened by strong bids by Democratic challengers. In Delaware, 29-year-old Joseph Biden Jr. was giving Sen. Caleb Boggs, R-Del., the fight of his career and in Kentucky, where Sen. John Sherman Cooper, R-Ky., retired, former Republican Gov. Louie Nunn and Democratic State Sen. Walter Huddleston were in a neck and neck race for Cooper’s seat. Biden would become the youngest member of the Senate ever popularly elected — qualifying for the age-30 minimum by only 44 days should he be sworn in next January. The election also was likely to produce the first Black member of the Congress from the South since Reconstruction. Barbara Jordan, 36, of Houston, was the favorite in a three-way race for a newly redistricted Texas congressional seat. Two other blacks were considered strong possibilities for House seats from the South — Andrew Young, a former aide to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in Atlanta, and J.O. Patterson Jr., in Memphis. McGovern: ‘Too old to cry’ By WESLEY G. PIPPERT SIOUX FALLS, S.D. UPI — Acknowledging that “it hurts to lose,” George S. McGovern conceded the election to President Nixon late Tuesday but said he felt sure his campaign “would bear fruit for years to come.” McGovern said he telegraphed his congratulations and promise of support for the next four years to the President at the White House, but he told his cheering supporters: “We do not rally to the sup port of policies that we deplore. But we do love this country and we will continue to beckon it to a higher standard.” McGovern appeared with his wife, Eleanor, four daughters, his son and a son in-law at his headquarters here shortly before midnight EST as the President rolled up one of the largest landslides in history. Some of the women blinked back tears. “We are not going to shed any tears tonight about the great joys this campaign has given us in the past two years,” said McGovern, who announced his candidacy in this same prairie town in January of 1971. “It does hurt all of us in this auditorium and many others across the country to lose. But we have found the greatest outpouring of energy and love ... We will never forget these we have seen at countless meeting places around the country. . .” ‘There can be no question that we pushed this country in the direction of peace and I think each of us prefers the title of peacemaker to any other title in the land.” McGovern told his cheering sup porters. McGovern said if his effort had brought peace “one day closer” then “every moment in this entire campaign was worth the sacrifice.” Nixon: God bless America' By ROBERT M. ANDREWS WASHINGTON UPI — President Nixon won re-election over George S. McGovern in an election landslide of historic dimemsions Tuesday night. Demolishing the old Democratic coalition with a sweep of the entire South, the West and the populous Northern and Midwestern industrial states, Nixon — the classic political “loser” just a decade ago handed the South Dakota senator the worst drubbing in electoral votes that any Democratic presidential candidate has suffered since 1864. McGovern’s tortuous, 22-month campaign for the presidency at the head of a shattered party yielded him only 21 electoral votes from Massachusetts and the predominantly black District of Columbia. Nixon surpassed the 270 electoral votes required for victory at 9:25 p.m. EST and roared on to seal McGovern’s disaster, winning even his home state of South Dakota. After receiving telephoned election returns while alone in the Lincoln Sitting Room of the White House, the President told the nation by television shortly before midnight that the country and both political parties were united“in our desire for peace . . . peace with honor.” Said Nixon: “We are on the eve of what could be the greatest generation of peace that man has ever known.” Photo by Bruce Lsndrey McGovern supporter at Eugene headquarters was not too old to cry.