Vice Mayor Alice K. Wolf scored a landslide victory in the City Council election Tuesday, garnering more first-place votes than any candidate since 1975 and leading the vanguard of what appears to be a decisive victory for the city's liberal forces.

According to a preliminary count taken yesterday by election officials, Wolf received 3548 first-choice votes, easily assuring her a fourth term on the nine-member City Council.

For complete results of yesterday's preliminary election count, see page 9.

Election officials estimated the "quota" of votes needed for election at 2698, meaning that 850 of Wolf's votes will be transferred to candidates who were lower choices on her first-place ballots.

And for the first time since his election to the council in 1959, Councillor Walter J. Sullivan failed to meet the quota on the first round.

Sullivan ran a distant second to Wolf in yesterday's count with 2553 votes--certainly enough to gain him a seat, but quite a ways from the mid-1960s, when a Sullivan vote of more than 4000 was the norm.

When asked if she had ever expected to beat Sullivan, Wolf answered with a simple "No."

"This is very dramatic," she added. In addition to Wolf, at least two other members of the liberal Cambridge Civic Association (CCA) slate appeared certain of victory: incumbent Francis H. Duehay '55 and challenger Edward N. Cyr.

Two other CCA-backed candidates, Kenneth E. Reeves '72 and Jonathan S. Myers, finished sixth and ninth in the unofficial first-choice ballot counting.

Sentiments ran high among CCA supporters in the early stages of the afternoon, as preliminary results led many to speculate that the good government group might win five seats on the council and that Timothy J. Toomey, Jr., a pro-tenant Independent, might win the sixth.

The CCA has not held a majority on the council since 1973. Since that time, power has been split evenly between the good government group and a group of four conservative Independents, with liberal Independent Alfred E. Vellucci providing th swing vote.

Liberal city activists appeared jubilant yesterday, with many predicting the stringest pro-rent control majority since the system's inception in 1970. Others predicted that the city would begin to step back from its aggressive pro-development stance and put strict controls on new zoning.

"It looks like we're likely to get a progressive majority" said Wolf. "Maybe a progressive majority plus Toomey."

"The slate did very well because I think the issues were developed very effectively," Wolf said.

City politicos had predicted that this election could radically change the face of city politics, largely because Vellucci, the mayor and a 34-year council member, and two longtime CCA councillors, Saundra M. Graham and David E. Sullivan, decided not to run. The last time three incumbent council seats were up for grabs was in 1961.