NATIONAL ELECTION RETURNS : EDITION-TIME COMPILATIONS : State-by-State Election Reports of Key Races and Issues : Iowa
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DES MOINES — Former “Love Boat” actor Fred Grandy won election to Congress, and fellow Republicans Sen. Charles E. Grassley and Gov. Terry Branstad won second terms in the face of a sour farm economy.
Grassley defeated Democratic attorney John Roehrick and Branstad turned back a challenge by Democrat Lowell Junkins. Branstad and Grassley distanced themselves from President Reagan’s farm policy and maintained that the economy was beginning to improve.
With 94% of the returns in, Grassley had a 66% to 34% vote advantage over Roehrick.
Grassley raised 10 times more money than Roehrick, a Des Moines lawyer who charged that Grassley’s reputation as an opponent of Pentagon spending was overrated.
In the 6th District, Grandy, who played bumbling ship’s purser Gopher on television’s “The Love Boat,” defeated Democrat Clayton Hodgson for a seat vacated by retiring Democrat Berkley Bedell. Hodgson, a longtime Bedell aide, campaigned on the theme that he had close ties to the district, but Grandy said he could be more effective in Washington.
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