Candidates Await Voters’ Verdicts

In their long and often bitter struggle for a Senate seat here, Democratic incumbent Russell D. Feingold and his Republican rival, Rep. Mark W. Neumann, have not agreed on much.

But both are in sync on one thing: With polls registering a dead heat, each expects to be up late tonight, waiting for the voters’ verdict in a race likely to come down to which campaign does a better job of getting out its supporters. “Right now,” said Gene Ulm, Neumann’s pollster, “it all comes down to turnout and intensity.”

Across the country in both parties, a long list of candidates in key races are saying the same thing. With the economy strong and public interest in the election low, the 1998 campaign has not produced a decisive tail wind for either side. Far from dominating the dialogue, the scandal surrounding President Clinton’s affair with Monica S. Lewinsky has surfaced only in a handful of races--and no other single issue has replaced it to provide a focus for the campaign.

In this diffuse and relatively placid environment, many of the nation’s marquee races--such as the contest here, as well as Senate races in New York, Kentucky, North Carolina and perhaps California and South Carolina--appear headed for photo finishes. Party operatives said Monday that as many as two dozen House races are still difficult to call--an unusually high number on election eve.

Amid conflicting polls, the real question may be whether any late trend or turnout advantage tilts most of the close races toward one side. That was the case in 1986, when Democrats won nine of the 11 Senate races in which the victor won 52% of the vote or less.

Experts Say Races Too Close to Call

As the ’98 campaign hurtles toward its conclusion, most analysts in both parties were betting against a similar advantage emerging for either side this year. Final national polls over the weekend suggesting some movement toward Democrats pointed in one direction. But saturation advertising from the national GOP in many tight races pointed in the other.

“There are a lot of close races out there, but I don’t think there is a national wave that will lead them all to break one way rather than another,” said Democratic pollster Geoff Garin. “Big things are going to be decided by small margins.”

For most of the year, in fact, candidates have had trouble attracting voter attention--a problem Feingold experienced Sunday as he campaigned amid raucous tailgating parties just before the Green Bay Packers game against the visiting San Francisco 49ers. A small crowd of fans stood by while a local television reporter asked Feingold what he would do about various national problems. Finally, one man voiced the real concern of Green Bay residents that day: “What are you going to do about Jerry Rice,” he called out.

At stake in today’s voting are 36 governorships, 34 Senate seats and all 435 House seats. History argues that the GOP should make at least some gains. In this century, the party out of the White House has added House seats in every mid-term election except one (1934) and has usually gained Senate seats as well.

This year, the magnitude of the Republican advance--if any--will be critical, not only to the Democrats’ hopes of regaining Congress in the foreseeable future but also to the course of impeachment proceedings against President Clinton. Most observers agree that the GOP will be more enthusiastic about impeachment if they make substantial gains than if they make only modest advances--or defy history by actually losing seats.

Wisconsin Will Play Key Role in Elections

Wisconsin, with three highly competitive House contests joining the hard fought Senate race on the ballot, will be one of the handful of states that determine which party goes home happy tonight.

The three tough House races are typical of the handful of contests that will determine the balance in the lower chamber. Freshman Democratic Rep. Jay W. Johnson, who represents a seat centered on Green Bay, is struggling against Republican state legislator Mark Green in the kind of socially conservative district where Democrats could suffer losses around the country. Conversely, Democrats are pushing hard to recapture two open seats currently held by the GOP in districts Clinton carried handily in 1996--the seat that Neumann has represented for four years in the state’s southeast corner and the seat being vacated by retiring moderate Republican Rep. Scott L. Klug in Madison.

Most observers give the advantage to Green, the GOP candidate, in the Green Bay district and to Republican Paul Ryan over Democrat Lydia Spottswood in the battle for Neumann’s old seat. Both Green and Ryan have pounded their rivals effectively with core conservative themes of crime and taxes.

In Madison, Democratic state legislator Tammy Baldwin is given the edge over Republican Jo Musser in a campaign that has revolved around Baldwin’s call for reviving efforts to guarantee universal health care. If Baldwin--seeking to become the first openly gay women sent to Congress--does not win in a district that Clinton carried easily in 1996, it could be a long night for Democrats, not only here but nationally.

A long and anxious night is almost guaranteed for Neumann and Feingold, who have pushed each other to the limit in one of the year’s most surprising races.

First elected in 1992, Feingold until recently appeared to be in a strong position to hold his seat. Generally tight-fisted on fiscal issues, socially liberal and an inveterate advocate of government reform, Feingold “managed to convey a politically independent image, and the state’s political culture is one that has always glorified one who is independent,” said John Bibby, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

But Feingold put himself in a hole by deciding to limit his campaign spending to $3.8 million (one dollar for each eligible voter in the state) and to discourage unregulated “soft-money” expenditures from the national Democratic Party or sympathetic interest groups.

Though Neumann agreed to abide by the spending limit, Feingold still unilaterally ceded an incumbent’s normal financial advantage (the kind, for instance, that has been crucial to restoring Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer’s prospects against GOP challenger Matt Fong in California). And though some outside Democratic-leaning groups have paid for television ads on Feingold’s behalf, he has discouraged and suppressed such help--leaving an opening for Neumann allies.

Exploiting that advantage, Neumann and the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee turned around the race with a series of ads accusing Feingold of supporting wasteful and frivolous spending.

Just as important, Neumann has had as much success as any Republican in the country at forcing the debate onto the sort of social issues that drew millions of “Reagan Democrats” to the GOP during the 1980s. While Feingold has allowed his campaign to be defined mainly by campaign finance reform, Neumann has peeled away blue-collar ethnic Democrats with his opposition to partial birth abortions and his support for a constitutional amendment banning flag burning.

That success in defining the agenda may give Neumann a slight edge. But voters like Paul Weiss show why it is too early to count out Feingold. Standing at a separate GOP rally just before the Packers game, Weiss said that he agrees with Neumann on most issues, but added: “I don’t like all this outside money.”

When the rally was over, Weiss said that he still had not made up his mind who to support--leaving him in the thin sliver of undecided voters who will determine not only this race but many more like it around the country in a year when the two parties are clawing over every last inch of ground.

Staff writer Janet Hook in Washington contributed to this story.