Prescience, with Caution

An overwhelming majority of the key reporters and pundits who write the day-to-day political stories for U.S. newspapers, radio and television are down-the-line liberal Democrats. To their professional credit, they did not permit their pro-Democratic bias to control their predictions of what would happen on Election Day. In general, the reporting-punditing press previewed the 1958 elections with considerable prescience and quite a lot of caution. They had the trend right, but in the main they were either unwilling to make specific forecasts or they underestimated the size of the Democratic sweep.

More Right Than Wrong. The most ambitious newspaper job of forecasting was done by the New York Times, which sent reporter survey teams to 13 states in the pre-election weeks, went back to some areas for last-minute rechecks. While the Times carefully qualified many of its bets, e.g., by forecasting that New York Democrat Frank Hogan would beat Republican Kenneth Keating in the New York Senate race unless Rockefeller's plurality exceeded 200,000 (it was 557,000), the paper's far-ranging forecasts were more right than wrong.

Timesmen called the Democratic turn accurately in Indiana. In Wisconsin they correctly picked Democrat William Proxmire for re-election to the U.S. Senate, but muffed the Governor race. In Arizona, after predicting that Democrat Ernest McFarland would unseat Republican Barry Goldwater, the Times took a second look, cautiously rated the race (which Goldwater won handily) a "toss-up." It missed Hugh Scott's Republican victory in Pennsylvania's Senate race, and Republican Senator John Bricker's defeat in Ohio. Getting right down to the congressional level, the Times stubbed its forecasting toe in some cases, e.g., in Michigan's Sixth Congressional District it predicted that Republican Charles Chamberlain (TIME, Oct. 27) would be turned out of office.

Editorial Before Midnight. No other paper went so far as the Times. The Philadelphia Inquirer scrupulously avoided any election predictions--as did all three papers in Pittsburgh. The Minneapolis Tribune relied on its statewide poll to indicate trends, let its readers make their own forecasts. All four Los Angeles papers ran poll results, otherwise avoided getting out on a limb. As for the other New York newspapers, the most remarkable performance was a public display of neuro-journalism by the New York Post (see below). The usually hep New York Daily News pulled an Election-Night boner with the un-Newsworihy headline, HARRIMAN JUMPS AHEAD IN CITY VOTE, at the same hour that the competitive Mirror was proclaiming ROCKY WINS. The Herald Tribune's national political pundit, Joseph Alsop (TIME, Oct. 27), wrote four days before election that "anyone would be a fool to forecast the New York outcome."

Having made its forecast, the Times was on the streets by 11 o'clock Tuesday night with a soundly written leader on the editorial page congratulating Rockefeller on his victory.

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