Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

DUKAKIS DEFEATS JACKSON HANDILY IN WISCONSIN VOTE

DUKAKIS DEFEATS JACKSON HANDILY IN WISCONSIN VOTE
Credit...The New York Times Archives
See the article in its original context from
April 6, 1988, Section A, Page 1Buy Reprints
TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers.
About the Archive
This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.
Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.

Gov. Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts overwhelmed the Rev. Jesse Jackson in the Wisconsin Democratic primary today, giving his Presidential candidacy an important push forward and seriously impairing Mr. Jackson's momentum.

Mr. Dukakis defeated Mr. Jackson, with whom he has been vying closely for delegate strength, by a margin of about 5 to 3, thus assuring himself a majority of Wisconsin's 81 delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta this July.

Senator Albert Gore Jr. of Tennessee ran third with less than a fifth of the vote, and Senator Paul Simon of Illinois trailed badly. Huge Turnout of Voters

The Dukakis victory was attended by an enormous turnout. Election officials estimated that nearly one million voters cast ballots in the Democratic race today, an increase of about 50 percent from the party's primary here four years ago.

With 90 percent of the precincts reporting, the vote was: Dukakis 428,584 (47%) Jackson 256,364 (28%) Gore 156,676 (17%) Simon 43,065 (5%)

The outcome, two weeks before New York's delegate-rich primary on April 19, was a significant breakthough for Mr. Dukakis, whose hopes of emerging as the ''inevitable'' Democratic nominee were severely undermined last month when he was badly defeated in the Illinois primary and the Michigan caucuses. Another Triumph in Colorado

Mr. Dukakis's victory followed a narrow triumph over Mr. Jackson in the first round of the Colorado caucuses Monday night. [ Page B6. ] Now, because of both the margin of the Massachusetts Governor's victory here and the breadth of the support, his assertion that he is the clear leader in the Democratic campaign is much more plausible.

As a result, it will be easier for Democratic leaders, notably members of Congress, to rally behind him. As long as Mr. Dukakis was losing contests to Mr. Jackson, politicians feared that efforts to unite behind the Governor would look like a ''stop Jackson'' movement with racial overtones, especially to Mr. Jackson's supporters.

Representative Charles E. Schumer, a Brooklyn Democrat who has long been leaning to Mr. Dukakis, said the Governor's victory today ''could well start a rush by elected officials to endorse him.''

''First,'' Mr. Schumer said of the Wisconsin result, ''it takes the stop-Jackson stigma off any endorsement. Second, with a big victory, Dukakis looks like a winner.'' A Jackson Paradox

There was a paradox in the outcome for Mr. Jackson, who, by doing so well with large crowds here, had raised the stakes for himself. Until quite recently, his performance in Wisconsin, where he won about a quarter of the white vote, would have been rated a success. But he is no longer simply a protest candidate, and so his failure to win here was a disappointment to him and his supporters.

A New York Times/CBS News Poll of 2,043 voters leaving Wisconsin polling places showed that Republicans who voted in the Democratic primary did not, as Democrats had feared they might, cross over to vote for Mr. Jackson as the weakest potential Democratic nominee. Instead, the poll found, Republicans who crossed over were more likely to vote for Mr. Dukakis or for Senator Gore.

As for those Republicans who voted in their own party's primary, they made Vice President Bush an easy winner over his only remaining opponent, the former television evangelist Pat Robertson.

With 91 percent of the precincts reporting, the Republican vote was: Bush 266,480 (84%) Robertson 22,578 (7%)

Mr. Robertson was beaten not only by Mr. Bush but even by Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, who withdrew from the race last week but won 8 percent of the Republican vote in Wisconsin today. Gore's Eyes on New York

Mr. Gore plans to fight on in the primary in New York and is expected to run a well-financed campaign there. He signaled the importance of that primary by flying to New York City on Monday night, before the voting here.

Mr. Dukakis's supporters said, however, that Mr. Gore's failure to break through with a victory since the Southern primaries of March 8 would make it difficult for him.

''Governor Dukakis and Reverend Jackson have been beating him week after week since Super Tuesday,'' said Susan Estrich, Mr. Dukakis's campaign manager. ''He's invested heavily in a number of states, and all he has is a series of disappointing third places.'' Simon to Clarify Intentions

The remaining Democratic candidate, Senator Simon, had indicated that he was likely to suspend campaigning if he fared poorly in Wisconsin, as he did. Tonight his organization said thhe would make a statement about his plans on Thursday in Washington.

The results bore out the predictions of Mr. Dukakis's advisers that the quiet voters whom he had amassed would overcome the rousing enthusiasm that Mr. Jackson had generated around this state in the last week. ''I think people looked at us and tested us in both of those states,'' Mr. Dukakis, referring to Colorado and Wisconsin, said tonight in New York. ''And they made a decision based on who they thought had what it takes to be the President of the United States, to lead our party.'' A Philosophical Jackson

Mr. Jackson was philosophical about the Wisconsin result. ''We're very proud that we got so many white votes,'' he said in Arizona, where he was stumping for that state's caucuses April 16. ''We go to New York with a good campaign, a broad-based compaign and a good message.''

Mr. Jackson praised Mr. Dukakis for running a ''positive'' Wisconsin campaign, and he issued a call for party unity, saying, ''Our real opponent is George Bush.''

Mr. Gore claimed the Wisconsin results as a kind of victory. He told supporters at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City that only a week ago he had just 4 percent in Wisconsin polls. ''It looks like we're now reaching about 20 percent,'' he said. ''It's really a tremendous result.''

In an interview, Mr. Gore noted that exit polls showed him doing better with voters who had made their decisions in the closing days of the Wisconsin campaign than with the rest of the Wisconsin electorate. ''We made more rapid gains than any other campaign,'' he said. Dukakis's Weapons

But in the end, it was Mr. Dukakis who managed to push his issues to the center of the campaign here.

In the Times/CBS News Poll, a quarter of those surveyed said a candidate's experience was one of the qualities that had helped to determine their vote. Roughly 70 percent of the people who responded this way backed Mr. Dukakis. An additional 10 percent mentioned management skills as important, and Mr. Dukakis won this group just as heavily.

Mr. Dukakis also seemed to have solved a problem that had plagued him throughout the earlier primaries: an inability to appeal to lower-middle-class and working-class voters. Here, such voters flocked to him; this candidate with the technocrat image did equally well across all income categories. And he did better among the less educated than among the better educated, a result he had not been able to achieve before in the primary season.

Mr. Dukakis also won roughly three-quarters of the voters who said their desire to find a candidate who could beat the Republicans in November had decided their vote. Without attacking Mr. Jackson, Mr. Dukakis had made clear his view that he, and not the Chicago clergyman, had the best chance of defeating Mr. Bush. The Criticism Issue

Although he was goaded repeatedly by Senator Gore for his reluctance to criticize Mr. Jackson, Mr. Dukakis appeared to have made a wise decision.

The Times/CBS News Poll showed that 4 Dukakis voters in 10 had a favorable view of Mr. Jackson, and these voters might have been offended by any unfavorable comments about him.

Mr. Dukakis managed to construct a political image that appealed virtually across the board. The poll found that 73 percent of Wisconsin's Democratic primary voters had a favorable view of him; only 23 percent had a negative view. He was viewed almost as favorably by conservatives as by liberals and moderates.

The finding suggested that the very qualities that Mr. Dukakis has been criticized for - his exceptional coolness and what is perceived as his lack of a clear ideological message - might also be drawing voters to his side.

On the other hand, Mr. Dukakis's supporters were clearly less enthusiastic about their choice than backers of Mr. Jackson and Mr. Gore were about theirs.

Forty-four percent of Mr. Dukakis's supporters said they were enthusiastic in voting for him; 45 percent said they backed him with reservations. For Mr. Jackson the corresponding figures were 59 percent and 33 percent, and for Mr. Gore, 49 percent and 35 percent.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 1 of the National edition with the headline: DUKAKIS DEFEATS JACKSON HANDILY IN WISCONSIN VOTE. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT