Election droppings.

NEW YORK, NOV 16

HERE ARE A few of the statistics that congealed on Election Day and caught the eye of this pundit (the figures are courtesy of the New York Times).

-Bush did better in the popular vote in 1988 (54 per cent) than Reagan did in 1980 (51 per cent).

-Nationally, the gender gap all but disappeared (Bush 50, Dukakis 49), which is a good thing since women outvoted men (52 to 48).

-Contrary to expectations, Bush did only slightly better than Reagan '80 with blacks (12 to Reagan's 11), but significantly better than Reagan '84 (12 to Reagan's 9).

-Bush did best with the 45-to-59-yearolds (57 to 42) but he prevailed over Dukakis with every age group, coming close only with those sixty and over (50 to 49).

-Bush did best with college graduates (62 to 37), least well with post-graduates (50 to 48) and with those who did not complete high school (43 to 56).

-Bush did better than Reagan '84 with the Jewish vote (35 to Reagan's 31), but not as well as Reagan '80 (35 to Reagan's 39).

-Bush did almost exactly as well with union households as Reagan '80 (42 to Reagan's 43).

-The wealthier the voter, the more pronouncedly in favor of Bush. But Bush began (49 to 50) to overtake Dukakis among voters with incomes between $12,500 and $25,000.

-Bush got far fewer Democrats than Reagan '84 (17 to Reagan's 24).

-Bush split the blue-collar workers with Dukakis almost exactly (49 to 50). Dukakis's heaviest patronage was among the unemployed (62 to 37). Bush's was among "homemakers" (58 to 41).

-Bush got 21 per cent of Democrats who voted in their primaries.

-Whereas 15 per cent of black men voted for Bush, only 9 per cent of black women did so. who discovered a positive response to the AIDS virus to track down and warn the patient's sex partners. But the voters approved mandatory testing for AIDS of suspects in certain crimes.

-The National Rifle Association lost the vote in Maryland, which sustained the ban on cheap handguns.

-Smokers narrowly escaped in Oregon a law that would have banned smoking in public places, but lost in California, which authorized a huge rise in smoking taxes (to 35 cents from 10 cents).

-Massachusetts rejected a measure that would have shut down the state's two nuclear power plants. Coming up in 1990, a Massachusetts measure to shut down Governor Dukakis.