Campaign Roundup

Ronald Reagan still holds a big electoral lead over Jimmy Carter, but which man has the momentum? At the moment, the GOP candidate has a 2-to-1 advantage over Mr. Carter in electoral votes and has picked up significant gains in the last two weeks, according to a Mervin Field poll released over the weekend.

But these findings come amid much talk in editorial columns of GOP overconfidence and of Carter's more energetic campaign. Carter probably also can expect some of the advantages of incumbency to move voters in his favor as election day approaches: namely, the tendency of many Americans to vote for the man who is already president.

A New York Daily News straw poll released Oct. 12 showed Carter to have built a seven-point lead over Reagan in New York during the last month.

Meanwhile, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch endorsed Carter's re-election effort. While his record "is not one to excite great expectations for a second term," the paper said, ". . . it is decidedly superior to the prospect of government by ideologicalm patent medicine."