Who's Ahead

Continuing its series of trial heats between potential Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, the Gallup Poll last week matched Vice President Richard Nixon against Tennessee's Senator Estes Kefauver. The results, excluding voters who answered that they were still undecided, showed Kefauver 52%, Nixon 48% (against 58% for Kefauver and 42% for Nixon in a poll taken last April).

Nixon, the pollsters noted, does considerably better among women voters than among men and is more favored by older voters than younger ones. Kefauver is preferred by about 60% of the voters who are manual workers, Nixon by nearly 60% of the voters in the business and professional fields. Kefauver leads in the South with 61% and the East with 53%, while Nixon leads in the West with 52% and the Midwest with 53%.

In another survey the South was canvassed for its preferences for the Democratic nomination. Adlai Stevenson, who lost to Dwight Eisenhower in five Southern states in 1952, was shown as Gallup-ing far ahead in the Democratic field. The results:

Stevenson 38%

Georgia's Senator Richard Russell 17%

Kefauver 12%

(House Speaker Sam Rayburn 10%

New York's Governor Averell Harriman. 8%

Virginia's Senator Harry Byrd 4%

Illinois' Senator Paul Douglas 3%

Others, and No Opinion 6%

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