1968 United States Senate election in Alaska

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1968 United States Senate election in Alaska
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←  1962 November 5, 1968 1974  →
  Mikegravel.jpg Elmer Rasmuson as Senate candidate (cropped).jpg Senator Ernest Gruening (D-AK) (croppedmore).jpg
Nominee Mike Gravel Elmer Rasmuson Ernest Gruening
(write-in)
Party Democratic Republican Democratic
Popular vote36,52730,28614,118
Percentage45.13%37.42%17.44%
1968 United States Senate election in Alaska by borough.svg
1968 United States Senate election in Alaska by State House District.svg
Gravel:     40–50%     50–60%     60–70%
Rasmuson:     40–50%
Gruening:     30–40%
U.S. senator before election

Ernest Gruening
Democratic

Elected U.S. Senator

Mike Gravel
Democratic

The 1968 United States Senate election in Alaska took place on November 5, 1968. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Ernest Gruening ran for a second full term in office but finished behind Speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives Mike Gravel in the Democratic primary. Gruening launched a write-in bid for the seat in the general election, but finished third to Gravel and Republican former Anchorage mayor Elmer Rasmuson.

Contents

Gravel would later lose the primary in 1980 to Gruening's grandson Clark.

This would be the first of 3 times where the incumbent holder of Alaska's Class 3 U.S. Senate seat was defeated in the primary while running for re-election.

Future Senator Ted Stevens also ran in the Republican primary, but lost to Rasmuson by around 1,000 votes. When incumbent Democratic Class 2 Senator Bob Bartlett died that December, Governor Wally Hickel appointed Stevens to the vacant seat, giving Stevens a seniority advantage of 10 days over the incoming Gravel.

Primary election

Democratic

Gravel ran against 81-year-old incumbent Democratic United States Senator Ernest Gruening, a popular former governor of the Alaska Territory who was considered one of the fathers of Alaska's statehood, [1] for his party's nomination to the U.S. Senate. Gravel's campaign was primarily based on his youth and telegenic appearance rather than issue differences. [2] [3] [4] He hired Joseph Napolitan, the first self-described political consultant, in late 1966. [2] They spent over a year and a half planning a short, nine-day primary election campaign that featured the slogans "Alaska first" and "Let's do something about the state we're in", the distribution of a collection of essays titled Jobs and More Jobs, and the creation of a half-hour, well-produced, glamorized biographical film of Gravel, A Man for Alaska. [5] [1] [2] [6] The film was shown twice a day on every television station in Alaska, and carried by plane and shown on home projectors in hundreds of Alaska Native villages. [5] [2] [4] The heavy showings quickly reversed a 2–to–1 Gruening lead in polls into a Gravel lead. [2] Gravel visited many remote villages by seaplane and showed a thorough understanding of the needs of the bush country and the fishing and oil industries. [5] [7]

Gravel also benefited from maintaining a deliberately ambiguous posture about Vietnam policy. [7] Gruening had been one of only two senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and his opposition to President Lyndon B. Johnson's war policies was harming him among the Democratic electorate; [8] according to Gravel, "all I had to do was stand up and not deal with the subject, and people would assume that I was to the right of Ernest Gruening, when in point of fact I was to the left of him". [1] In A Man for Alaska, Gravel argued that "the liberals" would come to West Germany's defense if it was attacked, and that they "should apply the same rule to Asians". [9] During the campaign he also claimed that he was "more in the mainstream of American thought on Vietnam" than Gruening, despite the fact that he had written to Gruening to praise his antiwar stance four years earlier. Decades later, Gravel conceded that "I said what I said [about Vietnam] to advance my career." [3]

Gravel beat Gruening in the primary by about 2,000 votes. [8] [10] Gruening found "the unexpected defeat hard to take" and thought that some aspects of his opponent's biographical film had misled viewers. [11]

Candidates

Results
U.S. Senate Democratic primary results [12]
PartyCandidateVotes%
Democratic Mike Gravel 17,971 52.9
Democratic Ernest Gruening (incumbent)16,01547.1
Total votes33,986 100.00

Republican

Results

U.S. Senate Republican primary results [12]
PartyCandidateVotes%
Republican Elmer Rasmuson 10,320 53.1
Republican Ted Stevens 9,11146.9
Total votes19,431 100.00

General election

In the general election, Gravel faced Republican Elmer E. Rasmuson, a banker and former mayor of Anchorage. [13] College students in the state implored Gruening to run a write-in campaign as an Independent, but legal battles prevented him from getting approval for it until only two weeks were left. [13] A late appearance by anti-war presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy did not offset Gruening's lack of funds and endorsements; meanwhile, Gravel and Rasmuson both saturated local media with their filmed biographies. [13] On November 5, 1968, Gravel won the general election with 45 percent of the vote to Rasmuson's 37 percent and Gruening's 18 percent. [14]

Results

1968 United States Senate election in Alaska [15]
PartyCandidateVotes%±%
Democratic Mike Gravel 36,527 45.13%
Republican Elmer Rasmuson 30,28637.42%
Write-in Ernest Gruening (incumbent)14,11817.44%
Total votes80,931 100.00%
Democratic hold Swing

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Alex Koppelman (May 7, 2007). "Don't worry, be Mike Gravel". salon.com. Archived from the original on June 27, 2009. Retrieved July 4, 2007.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Warren Weaver Jr. (July 2, 1971). "Impetuous Senator: Maurice Robert Gravel" (fee required). The New York Times . Retrieved December 24, 2007.
  3. 1 2 Power, Chris (June 27, 2021). "Mike Gravel, gadfly senator from Alaska with flair for the theatrical, dies at 91". The Washington Post .
  4. 1 2 Gruening, Ernest (1973). Many Battles: The Autobiography of Ernest Gruening. New York: Liveright. pp. 510–511. ISBN   978-0-87140-565-4.
  5. 1 2 3 Current Biography Yearbook 1972, p. 182.
  6. ↑ Faucheux, Ron (June 1993). "Great slogans: reading between the lines of America's best political rhymes and mottos". Campaigns and Elections . Archived from the original (fee required) on May 11, 2011. Retrieved February 2, 2008.
  7. 1 2 Current Biography Yearbook 1972, p. 183.
  8. 1 2 Chinn, Ronald E. (September 1969). "The 1968 Election in Alaska". The Western Political Quarterly . 22 (3): 456–461. doi:10.2307/446336. JSTOR   446336.
  9. ↑ A Man For Alaska (Film). Alaskans for Mike Gravel. 1968. Event occurs at 11:22.
  10. ↑ Johnson, Robert KC (August 7, 2006). "Not Many Senators Have Found Themselves in Joe Lieberman's Predicament". History News Network . Retrieved July 7, 2007.
  11. ↑ Gruening, Ernest (1973). Many Battles: The Autobiography of Ernest Gruening. New York: Liveright. pp. 510–511. ISBN   978-0-87140-565-4.
  12. 1 2 "Our Campaigns - AK US Senate - Open Primary Race - Aug 27, 1968".
  13. 1 2 3 Chinn, Ronald E. (September 1969). "The 1968 Election in Alaska". The Western Political Quarterly . 22 (3): 456–461. doi:10.2307/446336. JSTOR   446336.
  14. ↑ Chinn, Ronald E. (September 1969). "The 1968 Election in Alaska". The Western Political Quarterly . 22 (3): 456–461. doi:10.2307/446336. JSTOR   446336.
  15. ↑ "Our Campaigns - AK US Senate Race - Nov 05, 1968".
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