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Undecided Voters Key To Virginia Senate Race

Reprinted from the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

A silent and apparently large minority
of undecided voters left a curtain of
doubt hanging yesterday over the
outcome of Virginia's three-candidate
race for senator.

Three days before the Tuesday voting,
politicians and pollsters generally agreed
that the front runner still seemed to be
Sen. Harry F. Byrd Jr., seeking re-election
this year as an independent after severing
relations at least temporarily with the
Democratic party his father dominated so
many years.

Pollsters and politicians also agreed, however,
that one-third or more of the probable voters
seem to be undecided, an unusually high
element of uncertainty that complicates
pre-election guesswork.

Nip Mr. Byrd

On the assumption the most if not all of the
undecided are wavering between the anti-Byrd
candidates, Democrat George C. Rawlings Jr.
and Republican Ray L. Garland each clutched
at a common hope: To capture the great bulk
of the undecided and thus nip Mr. Byrd at the
finish line Tuesday night.

All three candidates put in a long, overtime
Saturday of campaigning. Mr. Garland and Mr.
Byrd concentrated on the Shenandoah Valley.
Mr. Garland by special train. Mr. Byrd by
motorcade. Mr. Rawlings was in the urban
corridor of eastern and Tidewater Virginia.

The people will give their verdict in 13 hours
of voting between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. on
Tuesday. They also will vote on four sets of
constitutional amendments and settle contests
for the House of Representatives in nine of the
10 districts.

Most of the politicians and pollsters agreed
that Mr. Rawlings was running second and Mr.
Garland third as the last weekend began.

Notable Dissenter

A notable dissenter was said to be Gov.
Linwood Holton, who surprised some
politicians and pollsters last year to become
Virginia's first GOP governor of the 20th
century.

Mr. Holton hasn't held any press
conferences lately, but he was telling friends
last week that several things encouraged him to
believe Mr. Garland had a good, fighting chance
to upset the prognosticators.

Like many others, Mr. Holton started with
the premise that the large element of undecided
votes could not be for Sen. Byrd; otherwise,
they would have said so.

Unlike many others, Mr. Holton has a
theory of his own about polls: In Virginia,
people are still very reluctant to admit that
they will vote Republican, so no poll can be
trusted very far.

Among other considerations said to add up
to cause for Mr. Holton's optimism were:
Reports to the governor from all 10 Republican
district chairmen indicated determined
preparations to turn out the GOP vote. Rank
and file Republicans were said to have been
stung to pro-Garland activity by the cavalier
attitude, pro- Byrd and anti-Garland,
manifested by White House spokesmen for
President Nixon.

A straw-in-the-wind interpretation was
placed upon the sudden warming-up toward Mr.
Garland of Rep. Joel T. Broyhill, heretofore
openly associated with Sen. Byrd and distinctly
cool to the Garland-Holton Republican
centrists.

In these intangible elements were evident to
the governor, they were not so evident to
outsiders in the Richmond area yesterday.

Republican state campaign headquarters
here was virtually deserted, as leaders joined
Mr. Garland on the special train. There was no
indication of serious get-out-the Garland-vote
work in the Richmond area on a scale
comparable to the effort for Mr. Holton last
year.

At Democratic state campaign headquarters
for Mr. Rawlings, meanwhile, there were visible
and audible indications of an around-the-clock
weekend of work. Boxes and small bales of new
campaign leaflets likening Mr. Rawlings to the
Kennedys plus sample ballots by the thousands,
were being dispatched to northern, eastern and
Southside Virginia.

Rawlings Appeals

There was talk of plans for strong
pro-Rawlings appeals to be made in the black
churches on the last pre-election Sunday, which
is traditionally the time for motivating this bloc
of voters.

George W. Grayson, state campaign manager
for Mr. Rawlings, kept his eye on the
"fantastic" proportion of undecided voters
reported by the pollsters and by his campaign
organization.

"That is where the election lies," Mr.
Grayson said. "I don't think these 'undecideds'
have any interest whatsoever in voting for
Harry Byrd."

Mr. Grayson estimated the turnout at a
relatively low 600,000 to 650,000 with the
candidates finishing as follows: Rawlings, about
41 per cent; Byrd, about 39, and Garland,
about 20.

The last Republican estimates from Kenneth
Lussen, Mr. Garland campaign coordinator,
suggested a voting total of 700,000 or more,
with Mr. Garland taking 35-plus per cent.

Avoid Predictions

Sen. Byrd's leaders have avoided percentage
predictions. They speak confidently of a
victory, however, and they obviously hope to
convert what they consider a certain 40-plus
percentage into 50 per cent or more.

Former Gov. Mills T. Godwin Jr., chairman
of the Byrd campaign steering committee, said
he saw indications that the voting turnout
would be in the range of the 915,000 Virginians
who voted for governor last year.

As Mr. Godwin saw it, many thousands of
Democrats would quietly join many thousands
of "swing" independents to give Sen. Byrd a
substantial edge.

The Byrd record has stood up against the
attacks of his opponents, Mr. Godwin reasoned.
It also "re-emphasizes the absence of any real
program offered by either of his opponents,"
he said.

"Those of us who have actively and
earnestly worked for Sen. Byrd in these past
weeks have done so for only one reason: To

assure the election of a man whose actions on
crucial questions reflect the views of the great
majority of the people of our state and who is
capable of providing the sane leadership so
urgently needed to deal with this country's
problems at the national level," Mr. Godwin
said.

While the various campaign leaders pondered
the meaning of the "undecided" element, other
political observers wondered if it might mean
more apathy and weariness than indecision, and
thus foreshadow a very light vote.

The last time Virginia elected a U.S. Senator,
in 1966, the total vote was about 734,000. This

state turned out nearly 1,360,000 voters for the
1968 presidential election.

Without a presidential contest to stir up the
people, without the zest and activity evident in
the gubernatorial election last year, and with
the apparent symptoms of voter
disenchantment, most observers lately have
been reducing their estimates of the probable
total vote.

Lively contests for the House of
Representatives, plus the statewide referendum
on proposed revisions in the Virginia
Constitution, may offset the minus indicators.
Local weather conditions and the effectiveness
of local preparations to get the voters to the
polls also could affect the size of the turnout.