Thread by @Prolemasses

A House Divided Part 241 - 1964 Downballot

The coattails of Hubert Humphrey's landslide proved a blessing to the Progressives, allowing them to defend many overexposed seats and keep their massive majorities.

In the Senate, where the results were largely a wash, the Democrats managed a net pickup of one seat, finally ending the Progressive supermajority in the upper chamber.

Democrats managed to defeat two Progressive incumbents, with Lt Governor Paul Laxalt taking down Howard Cannon in Nevada, boosted by Proxmire's victory in the state, and businessman Howard Buffett narrowly knocking off Lawrence Brock in Nebraska.

Part of a greater trend in recent years of the rural western states, once the bastion of the Progressive Party, trending to the right, a loss in the home state of the party's founder still hurt.

Businessman Winthrop Rockefeller, scion of the wealthy New York family, was also able to flip the seat one of Roosevelt's seats blue, replacing Progressive incumbent Alex W. Matheson, who declined to run for a second term.

Though these losses stung slightly, with the era of official Progressive supermajorities coming to an end, this was still an incredibly good result for the party. After their landslide win in 1958, the Progressives were defending more than a dozen potentially competitive seats...

...all across the country. That nearly every seat was defended, and the Progressives even managed to flip seats in Connecticut and New Mexico, limiting the Democrats to the gain of a single seat, represented a major victory in and of itself.

Several seats that did not change parties saw new faces nevertheless. After a stroke in 1963, Michigan Senator Patrick V. McNamara decided against running for reelection. Former governor, and 1960 Presidential candidate Soapy Williams easily won the race to succeed McNamara.

In newly admitted Nassau, incumbent Ralph Moses Paiewonsky ran for a full term after winning the 1962 special election, but narrowly lost renomination to state senator Arthur Dion Hanna, who then won in November in an expected landslide.

Just 36 years old, Hanna was the youngest Senator elected to the 89th Congress, also becoming the chamber's first black member. Hanna's victory in 1964 represented a victory for the "native" Bahamian population over the white political class, both the remaining British...

...and the arriving Americans. Large waves of American immigration to Nassua, to staff the military bases and space center, along with wealthy retirees who just liked the beaches and warm weather, had only further empowered the white ruling class.

Running a fiery populist campaign on behalf of the downtrodden Bahamians of Nassau, Hanna's victory was a moral victory for the Bahamians, who felt that they finally had a voice.

The young black populist, unapologetically speaking with a distinctive Bahamian accent, would make waves in Congress, standing out for his passionate oratory and just the fact of his identity in a sea of white faces.

The elections in the House were similar, with the Progressives defending their vast gains and even expanding on them, gaining a net nine seats to reach a total of 220. Again, just short of a supermajority, this still represented a major victory as the massive majorities remained.

Going into his full term, Hubert Humphrey would enjoy nearly the same transformative majorities as Richard Nixon.

He would make good use of them.

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