WILSON TURNAROUND LIFTS HIS NATIONAL PROFILE

The biggest political resurrection of the year is the comeback of California Gov. Pete Wilson. Early this year, as the campaign began, he was the most unpopular California governor in polling history. On Tuesday, he defeated state treasurer Kathleen Brown by a margin of 14 percentage points.

Mr. Wilson had stapled his campaign to a large extent on Proposition 187, a ballot initiative to bar most public services to illegal immigrants and their children. This decision was vindicated at the polls even more decisively than the candidate himself. While approval of Prop. 187 seemed to be shrinking rapidly in the waning weeks and days of the campaign, the actual vote came in nearly 2-to-1 in favor. This tide, along with the anti-Clinton and anti-Democratic current nationwide, carried Wilson.

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein also found redemption at the polls Tuesday - just barely - to return to a very different, newly Republican Senate next year.