The election of Angus King and the search for its historic precedents

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by Paul H. Mills

The election of former Governor Angus King to the U.S. Senate has set off a search of those rare precedents for such an election.

Though elections of non-major party candidates to the U.S. Senate have certainly occurred in recent years, for example, the 2006 elections of Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut as well as Bernie Sanders from Vermont, King’s election stands out.

This is because in nearly all other instances, it was of a senator who had the official backing of one of the major parties or who had originally been elected as a Democratic or Republican nominee, but later changed parties after having been elected. Lieberman, for example, served three terms as a Democrat before becoming an independent in 2006.

Sanders, though not a major party nominee, won with the explicit support of both the state Vermont Democratic Committee as well as with the U.S. Senatorial Campaign Committee. Though Sanders declined to accept the nomination of the Democratic Party in that election, the Democrats did not nominate a candidate to oppose him. In effect, his election was a victory for the Democratic Party although he did not appear on the ballot as the Democratic nominee.

Some would say that this might also have been the case with King, but he still faced official Democratic opposition in the form of Cynthia Dill. This feature also overlooks the fact that King initially entered the political arena as a functional Republican, his election in 1994 having drawn more support from Republicans than Democrats. (Susan Collins was the Cynthia Dill of that race, though in her case winning 23 percent of the popular vote, Democrat Joe Brennan running only a percentage point behind King in the gubernatorial election that year.)

The search thus continues for a precedent that is comparable to the King election, a candidate who defeats both the Republican and Democratic nominees in what amounts to a three-way race.

The 1970 election of Conservative Party candidate James Buckley in New York is a parallel, though in Buckley’s case he received the endorsement of some major Republican figures. Notable among them was Vice President Spiro Agnew, who dubbed the liberal Republican nominee GOP incumbent Charles Goodell as the “Christine Jorgensen of the Republican Party,” so-named for the first person to undergo a sex-change operation. Nevertheless, Goodell had the backing of the New York State official Republican establishment, including Governor Rockefeller, who had appointed Goodell to the position to take the place of the assassinated Robert Kennedy just two years earlier, and the state’s senior senator, Republican Jacob Javits.

In 1936, a Farmer-Labor candidate was elected to an open seat in the U.S. Senate from Minnesota. But here, the prevailing candidate Ernest Lundeen did not face opposition from both of the major parties. Instead, the Democrats threw their support to Lundeen and he defeated his sole opponent, Republican nominee Peter Christianson.

Likewise, the 1923 special election in Minnesota for a U.S. Senate seat had a similar setup. In that case, both the major parties did field candidates against the successful third-party nominee Farmer-Labor candidate Magnus Johnson, but the Democratic nominee received a mere 3.83 percent, well below what even Cynthia Dill garnered in this year’s Maine Senate race.

One has to reach back to a 1922 Minnesota U.S. Senate election to find a parallel that comes closest to the Angus King election of this year. That was a race won by Farmer-Labor Senator Henrick Shipstead who won 47 percent of the vote over future U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg who won 35 percent and 17.9 percent for Democrat Anna D. Olsen, the first major party female nominee anywhere for the U.S. Senate. (Jeanette Rankin sought, but did not win the Republican nomination for senate in Montana in 1918.) Shipstead had the longest enduring career of any non-major party affiliated U.S. Senator since the popular election of U.S. senators in 1916 and perhaps all time, he having served for 18 years as a Farmer-Labor senator and then was re-elected to his fourth term as a Republican serving a total of 24 years. He failed to be re-nominated by the GOP in 1946.

One has to reach pretty far then for any time in the last 100 years when a non-major party candidate has won an initial election to a U.S. Senate seat without either one of the two major parties effectively defaulting to such a candidate.

King’s election this year, of course, is not the first time that he has been a trailblazer. For among the more than half dozen independents elected as chief executives of their states over the last 80 years, King was the only one who wound up being reelected.

Indeed, Maine is the only state to have elected independents not just twice, but three times, counting the 1974 election of Independent James Longley, who voluntarily relinquished the job in 1978 without seeking reelection.

In this year’s Senate race, Maine once again stands out from the pack. Whether this is simply an isolated phenomenon or whether it foreshadows a trend in other states remains to be seen.

We shall see.

Paul H. Mills is a Farmington attorney well known for his analyses and historical understanding of public affairs in Maine. He can be reached by e-mail: pmills@myfairpoint.net

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2 Comments

  1. Paul, great article as always.
    Thanks.

    I cant help but fail to see much “uniqueness” since Mr King has done nothing other than align himself with the Majority party (Democrats this time around).
    So if the Reps were “in control”,what would he have done?
    Not sure what you call what he is doing.
    You cant just go with the majority all the time and call yourself an independant.
    You also cant go lock step with one particular party and claim independence either,
    But thats exactly what he’s doing.
    Not sure how “this” is going to stop gridlock in DC?

    Yes there was an official Dem running but the Dems actually backed KIng in this one because they knew what he was going to do (caucus with them). Plus Dill didn’t stand a chance on her own against Summers.

    Doesn’t look Independant or unique to me.
    It just looks like its all about “Angus”.
    He’s gonna “fit right in” down there in DC…..

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