Commemorating Mike Mansfield

Mike Mansfield died on this day 16 years ago. To commemorate the longest-serving Senate Majority leader and a person who is my favourite senator I decided to map his every (contested) election from the 1940 Democratic primary for the 1st Montana's congressional district to his last general election to the Senate in 1970.

Mansfield's electoral history has started with 1940 Democratic primary for the 1st Montana's congressional district which was a three-way race between former Rep. O'Connell, Montana's Lieutenant Governor Hugh Adair, and Mike Mansfield. O'Connell won, while only receiving 33% of the vote with Adair coming in second place with 29%. Manfield came third with 25% while managing to win Missoula county which was the second-most populous county in the 1st district at that time.

O'Connell then went on to lose the general election to Jeannette Rankin, the first-ever congresswoman. In 1942 Rankin retired and the seat was open. The Democratic primary had 5 candidates that year, but only two of them broke 10% mark - Mike Mansfield and former Rep. O'Connell. This time Mansfield won and even came close to 50%.

Mansfield faced businessman Howard Hazelbaker. He defeated him 59% to 40%. That was one of three Democratic pickups in 1942 when Democrats lost net 45 seats and the popular vote 47% to 51%.

In 1944 Mansfield faced no opposition for the Democratic nomination. And as Montana gave its 4 electoral votes to President Roosevelt for the last time, Mansfield won his first-ever re-election bid by a healthy 68-31 margin. Despite being his greatest result in 1st district it was not the only general election where he won every single county

1946 was the first midterm under President Truman. Republicans took control over the House of Representatives. Also, Mansfield faced-off his first-ever primary challenge. He won both the primary and the general election in landslides, but they, nevertheless, were very different.

 As you may see by this point, American elections in the 1940s had at least one thing similar to nowadays: Democrats perform worse in midterms. 1948 wasn't one and so Mansfield was easily re-elected by a little bit worse than in 1944 68-32 margin. He had no primary challenger that year.

1950 was the last time Mike Mansfield had run for the House, in 2 years he will be elected to the Senate. Mansfield won both general and primary elections in landslides.

1952 marked the first time that Montana was won by a Republican presidential candidate since 1928, but despite it, Montana chose Mike Manfield over its incumbent Republican Senator Zales Ecton. Incredibly, 1952 was the only Senate election where Mansfield didn't have a primary challenge.

1958 was a very good year for Democrats and so Mike Mansfield didn't have much of a race, in fact, it was his best performance in a general election, however, he did have a primary challenger, even two.

 1964 was Mansfield's first election where he stood as a Majority Leader. 1964 was actually an even better year than 1958 for Democrats but despite that Mansfield lost some ground and some counties in Montana.

1970 was the last time Montanans would see Mansfield's name on their ballots. In a little bit more than 6 years, he would retire from the Senate succeeded by a fellow Democrat John Melcher who would then be defeated by Conrad Burns who would represent Montana as the longest-serving Republican Senator from Montana until being narrowly defeated by Jon Tester in 2006.

Mike Mansfield was an incredible representative, senator, ambassador. To me, he represents everything that is right with American politics, while being criticized for his soft leadership style Mike Mansfield, nevertheless, was, is, and will be one of the greatest American legislators. 

A few days after his 95th birthday Mansfield expressed his philosophy in an interview.

''Differences can be bridged, solutions can be found, concessions can be made,'' he said. ''It's much better to take an inch than to take nothing at all. I don't believe that winning is everything, though it's very desirable. I don't think there's anything wrong in losing if you do it the right way.''

I believe that this is the way American politics can pave the way back to the days where common sense was the deciding matter instead of partisanship.