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 County results Hartke: 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% Handley: 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% | |||||||||||||||||
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| Elections in Indiana |
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The 1958 United States Senate election in Indiana was held on November 4, 1958. Outgoing Senator William E. Jenner, a Republican, retired and was succeeded by Democrat Vance Hartke, the mayor of Evansville, Indiana.
This was one of 15 seats held by Republicans gained by the Democratic Party in the 1958 United States Senate elections.
When Jenner elected to forgo a third full term in office ahead of the 1958 election, he intended his friend and protégé Governor Harold W. Handley to be his successor. With the help of Lieutenant Governor Crawford F. Parker, they hatched a plan for both Jenner and Handley to resign before the election; Parker would then become governor and appoint Handley to the vacant Senate seat. Handley's rivals within the party predicted the scheme would "set the Republican Party back an entire generation." The plan was never implemented, and Jenner served out the remainder of his term. [1]
Handley had been elected governor only two years before and had pledged during that campaign to serve the duration of his four-year term. Campaigning for the Senate was perceived as a violation of that pledge, as Handley would be forced to resign the governorship early if elected. Handley was hurt as well by another broken campaign promise, a significant tax increase he had ushered through the Indiana General Assembly. High unemployment coupled with Handley's tacit endorsement of the state right-to-work law damaged his standing with working class and union voters. [1]
Hartke, the Democratic nominee, ran a disciplined campaign that capitalized on Handley's weaknesses. On election day, he took 56 percent of the statewide vote, winning the first of three terms he would serve between 1959 and 1977. [1]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Vance Hartke | 973,636 | 56.46% |  9.64 | |
| Republican | Harold W. Handley | 731,635 | 42.42% |  10.02 | |
| Prohibition | John R. Stelle | 19,327 | 1.12% | 0.47 | |
| Total votes | 1,724,598 | 100.00% | N/A | ||
| Democratic gain from Republican | |||||
Rupert Vance Hartke was an American politician who served as a Democratic United States Senator from Indiana from 1959 until 1977. Hartke won election to the Senate after serving as the mayor of Evansville, Indiana. In the Senate, he supported the Great Society and became a prominent opponent of the Vietnam War. Hartke ran for president in the 1972 Democratic primaries but withdrew after the first set of primaries. He left the Senate after being defeated in his 1976 re-election campaign by Richard Lugar.
John Hardy Isakson was an American businessman and politician who served as a United States senator from Georgia from 2005 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served in the Georgia legislature and the United States House of Representatives.
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The 1966 South Carolina United States Senate special election was held on November 8, 1966 to select the U.S. Senator from the state of South Carolina. The election resulted from the death of Senator Olin D. Johnston in 1965. Then Governor Donald S. Russell entered in a prearranged agreement with Lieutenant Governor Robert Evander McNair in which Russell would resign his post so that he could be appointed Senator. However, former Governor Fritz Hollings won the Democratic primary election and went on to beat Republican state senator Marshall Parker in the general election to win his right to fill the remaining two years of the unexpired term.
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