Opening Round

It cost Ed Zschau $3.2 million, but he did it. Starting from near obscurity and facing a dozen rivals, the two-term Congressman won California's Republican Senate nomination last week with a 37% plurality. The Silicon Valley businessman spent $2 million on advertising, much of it devoted to teaching voters how to pronounce his name (like the first syllable in shower). In a display of post-primary solidarity, Zschau and his six key competitors sat down after his victory for a unity lunch in Los Angeles, where he discussed strategy against three-term Democratic Incumbent Alan Cranston.

The 1986 struggle for the Senate is on, and California is one of several states where the Republicans feel they must win. The G.O.P. now has a 53-47 Senate majority, but Democrats hope to pick up at least six seats this fall, when 22 G.O.P. seats will be up for grabs. Only twelve Democratic Senate seats are up this year, and no more than four are considered vulnerable. Cranston's is one of them. For the first time, the 71-year-old Senator will not be facing a far-right opponent; Zschau, 46, portrays himself as a fiscal conservative but social moderate. The Congressman's political polish, his relative youth and particularly his powerful fund-raising abilities (he expects to spend another $10 million) will be vital assets against a still popular incumbent who hopes to raise more than $8 million for the November contest.

Last week in two other primary preludes to crucial Senate elections, the results seemed to bode well for Democrats. In South Dakota, incumbent Senator James Abdnor fended off a challenge from retiring Governor William Janklow in the Republican primary; he will face the popular four-term Congressman Tom Daschle, the state's lone representative in the House. At Daschle headquarters, his campaign workers applauded Abdnor's victory. They felt the tough-talking Janklow would have been a more formidable opponent.

In Alabama, Democratic Congressman Richard Shelby, a conservative, won the Senate nomination resoundingly, and is expected to run a tight race against first-term Republican Jeremiah Denton. Alabama was also the stage for another historic primary, this one for the office occupied for 16 years by Governor George Wallace, who announced in April that he had "climbed my last political mountain." Having failed to win a majority, Wallace's Lieutenant Governor Bill Baxley, who was endorsed by blacks, teachers and labor unions, now faces a runoff later this month against his runner-up, conservative Attorney General Charles Graddick, who has the backing of businessmen and the Ku Klux Klan.

Democrats could also take cheer from a miserable showing by supporters of far-right Extremist Lyndon LaRouche. A preliminary survey by the Associated Press indicated that 40 or more candidates allied to LaRouche lost nominating campaigns for elective offices in New Jersey, California, Iowa and Alabama. One initially unchallenged LaRouche candidate in Orange County, Calif., was so weak that a last-minute write-in campaign for County Democratic Chairman Bruce Sumner came within 500 votes of stopping him. Sumner, who jumped into the race to halt the LaRouche onslaught, is expected to call for a recount.