THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 6, 1996 TAG: 9611060588
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A11 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: Decision 96
SOURCE: BY TONY WHARTON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 88 lines
The colorful, conservative Jesse Helms once again held off an energetic challenge by Harvey Gantt to win re-election Tuesday to a fifth term representing North Carolina in the U.S. Senate.
Gantt was unable to cut any deeper into Helms' support among white voters than he had in their first contest in 1990.
With 53 percent of the vote counted, Helms defeated Gantt 53 percent to 46 percent.
Gantt won the votes of fewer than four in 10 white voters Tuesday - about the same as 1990. He again garnered more than 90 percent of the black vote, according to preliminary results of surveys conducted with voters.
Helms led among men, while Gantt held a narrow lead among women.
``Jesse, for all his faults, when he speaks, you know exactly where he stands,'' said Jeff Griffits of Raleigh. ``He doesn't hide anything.''
Gantt pulled most of his support Tuesday from self-described moderates, who comprised almost six in 10 of his voters.
Not surprisingly, Helms fared well among conservatives. About six in 10 of his supporters called themselves conservatives, while more than a third of his voters said they were moderates.
The survey of 1,185 voters as they left 40 randomly selected polling places around North Carolina was conducted by Voter News Service, a partnership of The Associated Press and television networks. The margin of sampling error for each result was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for all voters, and higher for subgroups.
In this rematch, Gantt, convinced that North Carolina voters were moving his way politically, ran to see if they had moved far enough to elect him.
Polls have consistently shown Helms leading, but not overwhelmingly. Both men knew this was a volatile race.
The four-term veteran Helms, one of the most controversial members of the Senate, sees himself as an uncompromising crusader for traditional family and religious values. He opposes abortion and homosexuality.
Helms picked up the nickname ``Senator No'' because of his many negative votes on spending measures. Last year, Helms tried to eliminate all federal affirmative action programs.
Helms, 75, gained new power when Republicans took control of the Senate, lifting him to the chairmanship of the Foreign Relations Committee in 1995. He always has made foreign policy a specialty.
Helms was a newspaper editor and television commentator before his election to the Senate.
Gantt, 53, is the former mayor of Charlotte, the city's first black mayor. He has been breaking racial barriers since 1963, when he was the first black student at Clemson University.
Throughout this year's campaign, Gantt emphasized his childhood in a housing project in Charleston, S.C., and how his parents' hard work allowed their children to go to college.
Helms tried to paint Gantt as a liberal. Gantt sought more of a Clinton-Democrat stance, saying government can help people, but should be responsible about it, and should encourage responsibility. Gantt believes welfare should not be a permanent source of income.
He does oppose the death penalty, however. Helms supports it.
The race turned harsher in the last weeks, with the two men trading charges over whether Gantt got unfair financial help in the past because of his race and how Helms had voted on Medicare and Social Security.
Gantt launched extensive advertising to accuse the incumbent of abandoning the elderly, which at the very least drew a response from Helms.
``The intent, of course, is to scare senior citizens, many of them in nursing homes, many of them in hospitals and various other institutions that Mr. Gantt has visited over and over again,'' Helms said recently. ``He couldn't raise a crowd anywhere else.''
Gantt's other basic argument was that Helms was out of touch and had been in Washington long enough.
``There comes a time in a campaign when you have to trust the voters to do the right thing,'' he said last weekend. ``I'm not going to come up and beat up on Senator Helms. . . . All I'm going to say is, he's been there 24 years. That's enough time.''
At Little Rock AME Zion Church Sunday, Gantt tried to give his battle with Helms a historical dimension, alluding to past struggles for political change.
``Our forebears did a whole lot more than simply eliminate one insensitive senator who did not understand our cause,'' Gantt said. ``They brought down an entire system.'' MEMO: The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This story appeared on page A1 of the North Carolina edition. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Conservatives returned Jesse Helms, 75, to the Senate
KEYWORDS: U.S. SENATE RACE NORTH CAROLINA RESULTS
ELECTION by CNB