Easing the Doubt

As the reports came rolling in from the field last week, the top brass at Republican headquarters first blinked with pleasure, then reacted with suspicion. Out to the precincts went the word: "Check again." And almost invariably the rechecked answers were the same: Dwight

Eisenhower is steadily and unmistakably pulling away from Adlai Stevenson.

As the week wore on, less prejudiced guesstimates piled up. The Gallup poll showed the Eisenhower-Nixon popular vote holding steady at 52% (v. 55% at the same point in 1952), showed Stevenson-Kefauver down a percentage point since September to 40%--with undecideds at 8%. Perhaps the most impressive evidence came from hard-to-convince teams of New York Times reporters poking and probing into the political mainstreams of 16 states to report that:

P:In the farm belt, where the Democrats originally had hoped to gain most in 1956, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, North Dakota, Indiana and Ohio are all for Ike; Minnesota is a tossup.

P:In heavily unionized Michigan, where the G.O.P. was worried, Ike has the edge in spite of the hard, effective precinct work of the CIO United Auto Workers. EUR1 Among the border states, Kentucky, which went to Stevenson by 700 votes in 1952, looks Republican; Maryland may give Ike a bigger edge than it did four years ago.

P:In border Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma and Virginia (all for Ike in 1952), the Democrats are ahead. (But in Virginia, continued silence on the part of Senator Harry Byrd could lose Stevenson his narrow edge.)

P:Among the precarious, prosperous Florida is still Republican; West Virginia is still Democratic. On the heels of his first campaign trip across Texas, Vice President Richard Nixon fired back another surprise for G.O.P. headquarters: do not write off Texas' 24 electoral votes in 1956. Nixon's prediction: even Texas, which went for Ike in 1952 but looked unshakably Democratic this time, might tip to Ike if the President would campaign in the state.

There was still many a precinct to be heard from, many a speech to be made. But if, three weeks from E-day, many of the Ike-doubtful states were wavering, Eisenhower's lead over Stevenson seemed difficult to dispute.

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