2 More Women Win in Senate Primaries : Congress: Victories bring candidate total to nine. Two Republican House incumbents appear to have lost seats.

By DAVID G. SAVAGE

Aug. 5, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON — Two more woman candidates won Democratic primary elections for the U.S. Senate Tuesday, but will face an uphill fight in November against incumbent Republican Sens. Bob Dole of Kansas and Christopher S. Bond of Missouri.

Elsewhere in mid-summer primaries, two additional House incumbents appeared headed for defeat, including Rep. Guy Vander Jagt of Michigan, who has served 26 years in the House and chaired the National Republican Congressional Committee.

In Missouri, President Bush’s cousin lost his first bid for elective office, while in another race state attorney general William Webster won the Republican primary for governor.

In Kansas, Gloria O’Dell, a former assistant to the state treasurer, won the right to challenge Dole, the Senate Republican leader, and said her motto will be “Gloria vs. Goliath.”

“He’s been there for a third of a century,” O’Dell told a victory rally in Topeka. “He’s one of the reasons we’re in the mess we’re in.”

Dole thanked his supporters for an easy primary victory and said the voters of Kansas “will have a clear choice in November.”

In neighboring Missouri, St. Louis County Councilwoman Geri Rothman-Serot won in a crowded Democratic field and will be matched against Bond, who is seeking a second six-year term in the Senate.

The two victories by women Tuesday would bring to nine the number of women running for the Senate, eight of whom are Democrats. But that number falls short of the record 10 female candidates who sought Senate seats in the 1984 general elections. However, only one--Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum of Kansas--won.

Primaries were held in Michigan, Missouri, Kansas and Tennessee, while Mississippi voters cast ballots for members of the Legislature.

The voting claimed House incumbent Rep. Dick Nichols (R-Kan.), a freshman congressman defeated in his bid in a new district. Prior to Tuesday’s voting, 78 members of the House of Representatives were not returning to the chamber in January. Of those, 52 had retired, 13 were seeking other offices and 13 had been defeated in primary balloting.

The scandals in the House put another prominent member in trouble Tuesday, although ironically, he is a Republican who trumpeted the call for sweeping change in the lower house. With 88% of the vote in, Vander Jagt trailed businessman Peter Hoekstra in Republican primary by 47% to 39%.

Earlier this year, Vander Jagt, along with Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia, led the attacks against the Democratic leadership over the scandals involving the House bank and post office and contended the time had come for wholesale changes in the House. Two weeks ago, Gingrich, the minority whip, won renomination by less than 1,000 votes.

In Missouri, George Herbert Walker III, a brokerage executive and a cousin of President Bush, lost to James M. Talent, a state House leader, in a bid for the Republican nomination for Congress. Walker sought to play down his family connection, saying only that “I just happen to have a wonderful relative who lives in the White House.”

A firm foe of abortion, Talent will challenge first-term Democratic Rep. Joan Kelley Horn, an abortion rights advocate.

Abortion could prove also to be a key issue in the governor’s race in Missouri, where Webster won on the Republican side. Webster was best known for having successfully defended in the Supreme Court a Missouri law which restricted abortion in the case known as Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services.

He will be matched against Democratic Lt. Gov. Mel Carnahan, who defeated St. Louis Mayor Vincent Schoemehl.