A SPECIAL STAFF REPORT

Democrats easily re-elect Stevenson, Dixon, and win majority of legislative seats

Party also wins 9 of 12 Appellate Court posts and 3 U. of I. trustees; turnout lowest in Illinois in postwar era

IN THE GENERAL election on November 5, 1974, the Democrats easily re-elected U.S. Sen. Adiai E. Stevenson 111 and State Treasurer Alan J. Dixon; elected their three candidates for trustees of the University of Illinois; 13 out of 24 congressional seats; and large majorities in the Illinois Senate and House of Representatives.

The voter turnout was the lowest in an Illinois general election in the post-World War II period, with less than three million ballots cast according to unofficial returns. This was widely interpreted as reaction to Watergate on the part of many Republican voters who, it is supposed, did not go to the polls.

The chart below illustrates the trends in Illinois elections for the top of the State ticket (Senator, Governor, orTreasurer) in the 15 general elections from 1946 through 1974. The peaking effect in Presidential elections and the contrasting trough in off-years between Presidential elections is obvious. Note the rising Republican peaks, 1960 to 1968, and the lowering of the Democratic peaks during the same period. Since 1970, both the Republican troughs and the one Republican peak have been the most marked shifts in this 18-year history of elections. George Burditt, the former State representative who was the Republican U.S. Senate nominee, polled some 400,000 votes less than the late Ralph T. Smith (who had been Speaker of the House) received in 1970 when he lost to Stevenson; Smith, in turn, had polled 580,000 fewer votes than Sen. Charles Percy, the victorious Republican 1966 candidate. Sen.

Millions of votes

Illinois Issues/January 1975/15