Something for Everybody

Of all the primaries on the calendar before convention time, Wisconsin's was the one that was the closest thing to a pollster's dream of the perfect test of November. Of Wisconsin's 2,200,000 voters, some 58% live in and around cities, and the 42% rural population ranges from Cadillac-owning dairy farmers to the hard-pressed hog raisers and cattlemen along the Mississippi River and in the southwest. Even better, there was only one Democrat, Estes Kefauver, running against one Republican, Ike Eisenhower (although Ike had a nuisance challenge for the nomination from Ashland's fiery McCarthyite editor, John B. Chappie).

Stormy Weather. Last week Wisconsin obliged the pollsters in properly oracular fashion--by raising more questions than it really answered. The Republicans carried nine out of ten congressional districts, 58 out of 71 counties, and 58% of the total vote (for Ike, 426,408; for Chappie, 20,558). The G.O.P. percentage of total votes was down 18 points from the 1952 primary (when the Republicans came out in droves for a five-man race that did not include Eisenhower), and down only three points from the 1952 general election, when Ike carried the state.

In any case, it was another good showing for Estes Kefauver, and he seized upon it to announce that Wisconsin proved "real unrest against the Eisenhower-Benson program." And indeed unrest (general or not) was probably the safest word.

The total Wisconsin rural vote, traditionally Republican, was down from the 1952 general election, principally because the weather was stormy and there were few exciting local contests on the ballots. In well-to-do farm counties, the Democratic percentage climbed moderately, e.g., in Jefferson County from 1952-3 33% to 37%. In the marginal farm areas and in some hog-raising areas, the Democratic vote climbed more sharply, e.g., in Iowa County from 30.5% to 44.3%.

Deceptive Calm. But Wisconsin's real surprise came from the cities. Kefauver had thought normally Democratic Milwaukee (52% for Stevenson in 1952) was so safe that he made only one speech there during his four days of Wisconsin campaigning in January and February. Last week, in a big, cross-section turnout (because of the mayoralty race--see below), Eisenhower won 52% of Milwaukee's vote. His greatest gains came in labor wards, and, perhaps significantly, in heavily Negro wards.

These results, like the farm findings, raised some interesting next questions, but that was about all. As the independent Milwaukee Journal observed: "There was something for everybody in [the] presidential primary--and really not enough for anybody to wad a political shotgun."

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