KENNEDY LEADS NIXON

Most States Are Close, but Democrats Are Out Front

As of ten days before election, in a year in which professional pollsters are hedging their bets, this is how TIME correspondents called the 50 states:

Solid for Kennedy: Barring a huge anti-Catholic vote, Kennedy will win the deepest sections of the Deep South that held loyally to Al Smith in 1928 and Adlai Stevenson in 1956 (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi). Electoral votes: KENNEDY 39.

Solid for Nixon: The Vice President can bank on the traditional G.O.P. strongholds in New England (Maine, Vermont) and in the Midwest grain belt (Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota). Votes: NIXON 40.

The others:

Alaska (3 electoral votes): Strong labor and solid support for Democratic public-power projects. KENNEDY.

Arizona (4): Prosperous, conservative Goldwater country. NIXON.

California (32): Nixon's early lead is fading. In Los Angeles County, with some 40% of the vote. Democrats are picking up great support from labor, oldsters (who like Kennedy's backing of Forand-type medical aid), tax-pinched young adults in the subdivisions (who like federal aid to education), and sizable Negro, Jewish and Mexican-American blocs, which may cut Nixon down to less than half of Ike's 1956 majority. San Francisco, 25% Catholic, is expected to return to Democratic column. Normally Republican San Diego County may come close to a standoff because of slackening production in the airframe industry. On the other side: Nixon commands strong suburban and rural sympathies and native-son loyalties, has a lithe, tough organization. This week's edition of the authoritative Field California poll gives Kennedy 48%, Nixon 45% and undecided 7%. UNPREDICTABLE.

Colorado (6): Burgeoning population and intense labor union drives pushed voter registration to new peaks. In greater Denver, 3 to 2 for Ike in 1956, new registrations are running up to 10-to-1 Democratic. Though farmers are deeply rooted Republicans, Colorado has groups of Spanish and Italian Catholics and many depressed-area coal miners--helping Kennedy in a hairbreadth race. KENNEDY.

Connecticut (8): Democrats lead in voter registration for the first time in history, expect a lift from the state's 47% Catholic population. KENNEDY.

Delaware (3): Anti-Catholicism looms large in southern part of state, but Kennedy's brief visit a fortnight ago narrowed small G.O.P. lead. NIXON.

Florida (10): Miami liberals and Jacksonville Deep South Democrats favor Kennedy, but Nixon leads slightly in the big area in between. NIXON.

Hawaii (3): Union chiefs endorsed Nixon, but rank and file are defecting. UNPREDICTABLE.

Idaho (4): Recession in mines and timberlands hurts, but good potato harvest helps G.O.P. NIXON.

Illinois (27): Ike won Adlai Stevenson's home domain by 848,000 votes in 1956, but Nixon seems to be running more like Tom Dewey, who was edged out by Truman in 1948. This year voter registration is up 324,000 in Chicago's Cook County, and many of the new names belong to recession-pressed Southern whites, Negroes and Puerto Ricans who have migrated to Mayor Dick Daley's precision-run Democratic machine wards. A pro-Kennedy Catholic trend has cut into Republican suburban margins. Downstate is mostly Republican, but farmers are grumbling about a cost-price squeeze, farm-equipment workers and miners are hit by layoffs, G.O.P. leaders are feuding, and Democratic wheelhorses are laboring for Kennedy as they never did for Reformer Stevenson. Kennedy benefits from the coattails of popular Senator Paul Douglas and Chicago Judge Otto Kerner, who is favored for Governor. KENNEDY.

Indiana (13): Conservative, Protestant farmers and townsmen will cast more votes than the recession-pinched steelworkers. NIXON.

Kentucky (10): The question: Will economically distressed small farmers, miners and appliance workers vote their preacher or their pocketbook? "It's so close," says a top Republican, "that it could be a matter of whether or not it rains on Election Day." UNPREDICTABLE.

Louisiana (10): "Anti-Romanism" is intense in the rural areas. But Catholics (35%) and Negroes who liked Ike in 1956 now back Jack. KENNEDY.

Maryland (9): Ike won 60% of the 1956 vote, but Nixon's margins are cut in Washington and Baltimore suburbia, though the farmland is still a Republican nest egg. Democrats anticipate a fat majority in Baltimore, which is more than half Catholic, Jewish or Negro. UNPREDICTABLE.

Massachusetts (16): KENNEDY.

Michigan (20): Detroit's Wayne County, 58% for Stevenson in 1956, should return to its usual two-thirdsDemocratic pattern, and unemployment may pare the G.O.P. majority outstate. Swinging back from Ike to Kennedy: unionists' wives. Catholics, ethnic blocs (Kennedy championed aid to Poland as far back as 1957), Negroes (usually the first to be laid off in tight times). Nixon needs a 15th-round knockout to win. KENNEDY.

Minnesota (n): Favoring Kennedy is a sizable Catholic population (28%), Democratic loyalties in the cities and a recession in the Mesabi iron range. Favoring Nixon is a rural Lutheran population and a sharp G.O.P. organization that plans to telephone 80% of the Republicans and "friendly independents" four times each before Election Day. Seesawing polls put Kennedy and Democratic Governor Orville Freeman slightly behind. UNPREDICTABLE.

Missouri (13): The only state outside the Solid South that voted for Stevenson in 1956, it will probably go for Kennedy in 1960. But he will run weakly behind his party's potent state ticket. KENNEDY.

Montana (4): Strongly unionized copper miners, hard-hit small farmers and a large (23%) Catholic population led the Democrats to a majority of almost 2 to 1 in primary voting. KENNEDY.

Nevada (3): Prosperous and heavy for Ike in 1952 and 1956, yet sizable Catholic vote and Democratic organization have blunted an early Nixon edge. UNPREDICTABLE.

New Hampshire (4): A newly vigorous Democratic organization boasts an attractive figure in Gubernatorial Candidate Bernard Boutin, but Republican sentiment is granite-strong. NIXON.

New Jersey (16): The religion issue discourages Republicans in a 43% Catholic state. Ike won by 2 to 1 in 1956, but G.O.P. polls show that some districts that swung to Ike will go 65% to 80% for Kennedy. Fanning the religion issue, Democratic stumpers display anti-Catholic tracts while speechifying. KENNEDY.

New Mexico (4): Strong labor, a boom in voter registration and a slump in the construction industry make the difference. KENNEDY.

New York (45): "We're in trouble," grumbles a New York Republican chieftain. New York City's historically Democratic minority groups will deliver a whopping Kennedy majority. The New York Daily News poll, which has been in the money in every major election since 1948, reads it Kennedy by 56% to 44%. KENNEDY.

North Carolina (14): The Democrats, boasting their biggest and best organization in any presidential campaign, are working hard to counter anti-Catholic feeling and to offset Republicans in the booming Piedmont cities and in the western mountain counties. The Democrats have sent in Harry Truman to talk common sense to his fellow Baptists, have shown the Kennedy Houston film three times. A sitdown by old-line Democrats could throw it to Nixon. UNPREDICTABLE.

Ohio (25): The downstate Republican tide is ebbing. Depressed Ohio River towns bulge with poor West Virginians and Kentuckians, and the Democrats are hotly courting them. Scripps-Howard polls gave Nixon only 46% of the straws in Cincinnati--which went 62 1/2% for Ike in 1956. The G.O.P. counts on carrying the farm counties, along with Dayton and Columbus. The rising Democratic tide in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) and other major industrial areas (in Youngstown, 30,000 of the 55,000 steelworkers are unemployed) should easily tip the balance. KENNEDY.

Oklahoma (8): Polls put Nixon ahead of Ike (who won with 55% in 1956). NIXON.

Oregon (6): Neither candidate has caught fire, but religion hurts Kennedy. NIXON.

Pennsylvania (32): Recession and religion are key issues. Unemployment is up to 8%, both coal and steel are hurting simultaneously (steel production is at 44%). A big (31%) Catholic population helps Kennedy, but Nixon will pick up voters among the conservative Pennsylvania Dutch farmers. To win, Kennedy needs a plurality of some 250,000 votes in Philadelphia, should get it. KENNEDY.

Rhode Island (4): 61% Catholic and warmly for a neighbor-stater. KENNEDY.

South Carolina (8): Baptist and conservative first, Democratic second. Even local Democratic candidates are divorcing themselves from Liberal Kennedy. NIXON.

Tennessee (11): The Negro vote, which put Ike across in 1956 (by a scant 5,800 votes), now leans to Kennedy in an otherwise evenly divided state. KENNEDY.

Texas (24): Big, Baptist and basically conservative, Texas dislikes Republican Nixon less than it dislikes Democrat Kennedy. NIXON.

Utah (4): A Mormon blessing for the G.O.P. NIXON.

Virginia (12): Patriarch Harry Byrd has spoken no word for Kennedy, last week posed smilingly for pictures with speech-making Republican Eisenhower. Other state politicos are working hard for Kennedy, but it is still NIXON.

Washington (9): Local issues prevail. Up for re-election and in trouble is Democratic Governor Al ("The Rose") Rosellini, who has recently grabbed desperately for Kennedy's coattails and slowed him down. Rosellini's administration, flecked with scandal and heavy with Roman Catholic officeholders, has stirred up mild anti-Catholicism among Washington's Scandinavian Lutherans. NIXON.

West Virginia (8): Time for a change. KENNEDY.

Wisconsin (12): Farm unrest and massive switch of Ike-liking Catholics (32% of-population) will carry for Kennedy, who personally pumped the hands of tens of thousands during last spring's primary. KENNEDY.

Wyoming (3): Uranium boom and missile-base construction brought in new workers, bolstered unions, boosted voter registration, and the Democrats have been working hard to organize them. KENNEDY.

BEST ESTIMATES AT WEEK'S END (269 needed to win): KENNEDY: 306. NIXON: 149. So close as to be UNPREDICTABLE: 82.

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