Bay State Voters Stay Liberal

President Reagan was projected the winner yesterday in the Massachusetts presidential contest, where voters gave Democratic challenger Walter F. Mondale one of his strongest showings nationwide.

With 92 percent of the precincts reporting as of 3:15 a.m., Reagan led Mondale by four percentage points.

CBS and ABC News earlier projected that Reagan would narrowly edge out his opponent, while NBC described the race as too close to call.

Massachusetts voters went to the polls in record numbers, bucking the band-wagon that gave Reagan landslide margins of victory across the country.

According to television exit polls, Reagan made significant inroads yesterday with Independents and registered Democrats, who outnumber registered Republicans four to one.

Reagan carried the staunchly Democratic Bay State by a fraction of a point in 1980, when then-President Jimmy Carter and Independent candidate John Anderson split the liberal vote.

"This is a Reagan victory; that was a Carter defeat," said Professor of Government Richard E. Neustadt.

While Reagan trounced his opponent nationwide, Mondale salvaged a close finish in Massachusetts. Mondale drew strong support yesterday from female voters, who made up almost two-thirds of the unprecedented 85 percent turnout.

Political observers said that Mondale might have benefited from a "reverse coattail effect," drawing strength from popular Democratic Senate candidate John F. Kerry. Kerry swept to a comfortable victory over Republican Raymond Shamie.

MIT political scientist Walter Dean Burnham said that a rally on the Boston Common last Friday with Kerry and other prominent Massachusetts Democrats might have crystallized Mondale's base of support.

Most recent opinion polls showed Mondale trailing Reagan in Massachusetts, and his strong finish came as something of a surprise.

Massachusetts, considered a stubborn bastion of liberalism, was the only state to resist President Richard M. Nixon's reelection tidal wave in 1972.

State GOP leaders yesterday hailed the apparent Reagan victory as a signal of Republican resurgence.

"The Republican Party is now a valid party in this state," said Sen. David H. Locke '51 (R-Wellesley), chairman of the Massachusetts Reagan-Bush campaign.

"The old New Deal coalition has finally collapsed in Massachusetts," said Republican State Committee Chairman Andrew S. Natsios (R-Holliston). "Reagan has recreated the Republican Party in Massachusetts through young people," he added.

In a campaign appearance at Boston's City Hall Plaza last week, Reagan directed his appeal to young voters, who have rallied behind the Republican standard more than any other age group.

A largely young crowd of Reagan supporters celebrated the GOP victory last night at Reagan-Bush headquarters in the Marriott Copley Place Hotel.

"Landslide, landslide," the jubilant Republicans chanted as they watched election returns color network maps blue on a wide-screen television.

"We take pride in being Americans. That's why we're for Reagan," said Eugene Novak, a Reagan-Bush volunteer and a student at the Wentworth Institute of Technology.

A more somber atmosphere prevailed at the Park Plaza Hotel, where Bay State Mondale-Ferraro backers had little to celebrate.

Early returns indicating a Mondale victory in Massachusetts lifted their spirits, but the mood soured when television networks later projected Reagan the local winner.

Mondale supporters listened with teary eyes as their candidate conceded the race from his Minnesota headquarters.

"No, no," they shouted when Mass. Gov. Michael S. Dukakis called on Democrats to "accept the verdict" and "rally behind the winner."

State Mondale-Ferraro coordinator Paul Lanzikos found some consolation in his ticket's tight Massachusetts finish, saying, "Massachusetts may be becoming the conscience of the nation."