Monday, Sep. 27, 1954

Who Won

In nine states, from Vermont to Washington, primary elections last week proved very little about national trends. In some places more Democrats than usual voted in their party primaries. In most places Senator Joe McCarthy, who once picked himself as 1954's top issue, was no issue at all; the few McCarthyites who reared up were slapped down hard. Notable among nominations for six governorships, five Senate and 92 House seats:

P:In New Hampshire a 100% Ike supporter, a Taft conservative and a fervid McCarthy fan--in that order--ran one, two, three in the Republican race for the two-year remainder of the late Charles Tobey's Senate term. The winner: veteran Congressman Norris Cotton, 54, who at 24 presided over a G.O.P. state convention. An old friend of Presidential Adviser Sherman Adams, Cotton came out for Ike back in 1951, is rated a sure winner in November.

P:In Colorado Attorney John Carroll, 53, an oldtime Denver cop and onetime legislative adviser to President Truman, beat Denver's young Mayor Quigg Newton for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator. Then Carroll braced him self for an inevitable bang-up final campaign against Republican Lieutenant Governor Gordon Allott, 47.

P: Colorado's Fourth Congressional District. Pitkin County, gave Incumbent Democrat Wayne Aspinall only 50 votes, but wrote in 80 votes for Congressman John P. Saylor of far-off Pennsylvania. Reason for Pitkin County's pique: Aspinall favors but Saylor opposes the Frying Pan-Arkansas reclamation project, which would divert Colorado River water from Pitkin's side of the Rockies to the east slope.

P:In Massachusetts Italian-Irish Democrat Foster Furcolo, the choice of the party convention (TIME, June 21), was nominated over two opponents to run against the G.O.P.'s Leverett Saltonstall for the U.S. Senate.

P:In Minnesota Republican Kristjan Valdimar ("Val") Bjornson, an ex-reporter who can and does orate in Icelandic, Finnish, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian, was nominated to run against Democratic Senator Hubert Humphrey.

P:In Vermont Consuelo Northrop Bailey, second woman to be speaker of a U.S. state legislature,* won the G.O.P. nomination and virtual certainty of becoming the nation's first lady lieutenant governor. Tireless Connie Bailey, 54, who first won office (state's attorney) in 1927, drove 23,000 miles to campaign, handily defeated two strong male opponents, former Governor Harold Arthur and Attorney General F. Elliott Barber Jr.

P:In Washington ex-Senator Hugh Mitchell staged a comeback, won the First District Democratic nomination to run for Congress against G.O.P. Incumbent Tom Pelly, a former Seattle banker.

P:In Wisconsin, McCarthy's home state, McCarthy supporters lost out and Democrats ran up their biggest primary vote in the state's history. Sauk County's blind, legless Republican District Attorney Harlan Kelley, who vigorously opposed the Joe-Must-Go campaign, lost his fight for renomination 1,479 to 4,403, blamed anti-McCarthy feeling in part. Secretary of State Fred Zimmerman, 73, a ten-termer who always tops the ticket but was slated for purge by the G.O.P. machine for attacking McCarthy, once more won by an overwhelming majority over ex-Editor Joyce Larkin, a strong and heavily financed McCarthyite. Afterwards, Mrs. Zimmerman disclosed that her husband had spent the last week of the campaign in St. Luke's Hospital, resting up.

*The first: Minnie B. Craig, speaker of the North Dakota legislature in 1933.

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