For the Senate

TWELVE TO ONE.

Her campaign T- Shirts say GIVE 'EM HELL, HARRIETT. That is precisely what the Democratic challenger is doing. Harriett Woods, 55, a Missouri state senator and well-known talk-show host, has campaigned ceaselessly against incumbent Republican John Danforth's support of Reagan's economic programs, an approach that is going down well in the traditionally Democratic and fiscally floundering Show Me State. Danforth, 46, an Episcopal priest, heir to the Ralston Purina fortune and Missouri attorney general for eight years before becoming a Senator in 1976, is outspending Woods 2 to 1 and trading on his enormous personal popularity in the state. "Everybody likes Danforth," concedes Missouri Democratic Senator Thomas Eagleton. As recently as last month, Danforth held a 15-point lead over Woods. But no longer: in its most recent poll, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat showed the race a tie at 47% apiece. Analysts point out that Danforth's 1976 victory was the only Republican win in the state's previous twelve Senate contests.

THE X FACTOR. Detractors have dubbed the two candidates Loudmouth Lowell and Terrible Toby. Behind the name-calling, two-term incumbent Republican Lowell Weicker, 51, and four-term Democratic Congressman Toby Moffett, 38, are locked in a dead-heat classic of American political theater. Weicker was ambushed recently at a campaign stop by Flip-Flop the Clown, a costumed Moffett staffer seeking to symbolize the incumbent's election-year renunciations of his 1981 votes for the President's budget and tax cuts. Weicker, whose slogan has been "Nobody's Man but Yours," has countered by pushing his image as an unbossed maverick, a legitimate characterization. The polls have offered contradictory predictions. And there is also an X factor confusing everyone's calculations: the presence of Conservative Party Candidate Lucien DiFazio, who is positioned to siphon off some of Weicker's support. "If DiFazio pulls 7%," said a Democratic campaign strategist last week, "it's Toby."

NUCLEAR ATTACK. Democratic Governor Jerry Brown, 44, a former seminarian whose flaky image won him the title Governor Moonbeam, lagged 22 points behind San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson as recently as last June. But his well-placed salvos have put Wilson, 49, on the defensive. Brown scored direct hits by publicizing the Republican's opposition to a nuclear-freeze initiative, which is expected to win handily in California, and Wilson's failure to pay federal income taxes in 1980 despite an income of $75,000. An early poll showed 43% of Wilson's backers in his camp because of antipathy toward Brown, and the youthful-looking mayor has tried to make the Governor the issue, with uneven success. Wilson has a solid reputation as a municipal manager. But his inexpert handling of Brown's attacks has cost him his once sizable lead, and the race now seems close to a dead heat, with each side hoping that the other will blunder in the waning days of the campaign.

TRIBLE PLAY. The race in Virginia for Senator Harry Byrd's vacated Senate seat is at the top of the White House most-wanted list. But what looked in May like assured ascension for three-term Republican Congressman Paul Trible, 35, a letter-perfect Reagan loyalist, has turned into a neck-and-neck finish with Democrat Richard Davis, 61, the state's Lieutenant Governor. With a statistically insignificant two points between them in the latest polls, neither candidate leads. The boyish-looking Trible, who stalked the Republican nomination for two years, is viewed by some as transparently ambitious, with a lackluster congressional record--his 1982 absenteeism rating was 399 out of 435. By contrast, Davis, a former mortgage banker, was drafted for the Democratic nomination and had a reputation for taking care of business during his six-year tenure as mayor of Portsmouth. With the undecided vote hovering at 20%, victory appears to hinge more on style and character than on substance.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.