Reagan's Sweep Boosts GOP on Hill As Republicans Take Control in Senate

New Right "targeting" and a widespread public shift toward conservatism may have helped fuel yesterday's shocking Republican triumph in Congressional races, but far more GOP nominees glided to victory on Ronald Reagan's coattails than anyone expected.

And Republican leaders only began to realize the extent of their win as they watched their already-bulging key Senate races in Georgia and Arizona drop into the election day booty bag early yesterday morning.

Not only had the GOP ousted the bulk of the Senate's liberal old guard--headed by the likes of Sens. George S. McGovern (D-S.D.), Birch Bayh (D-Ind.), and Frank Church (D-Idaho)--but it had also gained a majority in the house (53-47) for the first time since 1955.

In the House of Representatives, the Democrats managed to escape with a tenuous hold on the helm, but the Republicans picked up an unexpected 33 seats. By cutting the Democratic lead to 243-192, the Republicans boosted themselves back to their pre-Watergate strength and laid the foundation for a serious assault on the House Democratic leadership in 1982.

Although many Congressional observers discounted the possibility of either presidential candidate significantly helping his party in the battle for Capitol Hill, Reagan's unexpectedly convincing surge in popularity clearly aided other Republicans.

"The Reagan sweep did it," Bayh said Tuesday night after Rep. Dan Quayle (R-Ind.) defeated the three-term chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Agreeing with Bayh's analysis, Richard E. Neustadt, Littauer Professor of Public Administration, said yesterday, "The Reagan coat tail effect was the primary force behind the Republican success in Congress."

Democratic losers such as Bayh, House Majority Whip John Brademas (D-Ind.), and Rep. Al Ullman (D-Wash.), "became surrogates for (President) Carter," as voters "expressed extreme dissatisfaction with Carter's policies and current economic problems," Neustadt added.

Lobbies

Although the efforts of zealous lobbies such as the National Conservative Political Actions Committee and the Moral Majority did not backfire as severely as several Republican candidates feared they might, these groups did not swing the vote toward the GOP as much as the "massive Reagan victory," Gary Orren, lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government and former chief pollster for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54 (D-Mass.), said yesterday.

Simple demography affected Tuesday's races as well. Many of the powerful Democrats who fell have toiled for years as isolated liberals in increasingly conservative states--such as Indiana, Iowa and Idaho--and were criticized for their lack of contact with constituents and general abandonment of state concerns.

Although the 97th Congress itself will lean much further right than its predecessor, the Republicans are probably a bit premature in their morning-after predictions of a lasting conservative realignment.

Orren points out that "The vote is less a turn to the right than a repudiation of recent mishandling of government, by Carter and others."