United States Senate elections, 1938

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Republican holds Republican pickups Democratic holds Democratic pickups

The U.S. Senate elections, 1938 were elections for the United States Senate which occurred in the middle of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's second term. This occurred six years after the Democratic landslide in the 1932 election, and so the opposition Republicans gained six seats from the Democrats. However, the Democrats retained a commanding lead over the Republicans with more than two-thirds of the chamber.

A contemporary account ^[1] cited a number of reasons for the losses suffered by the Democrats. The first was the Recession of 1937, which had continued into the first half of 1938, and which had arguably weakened public confidence in the administration's New Deal economic policies. Controversy over a government reorganization bill (Roosevelt's "Court-packing" plan) was also a major factor. There were, in addition, strains between the more liberal New Deal supporters and the conservative wing of the Democratic party centered in the Southern states. These strains were exacerbated by an effort led by President Roosevelt to target certain conservative senators for defeat in Democratic primaries, including Walter George of Georgia, Millard Tydings of Maryland and Ellison Smith of South Carolina, along with the chairman of the House Rules Committee, John J. O'Connor of New York. While a number of New Deal supporters won primary elections, such as Sen. Alben Barkley in Kentucky, who defeated future baseball commissioner Happy Chandler, Sen. James P. Pope of Idaho, a prominent New Deal supporter, lost his bid for re-nomination, as did California senator William McAdoo.

Given the high levels of Democratic success in the 1930, 1932, 1934 and 1936 elections, the Democrats did face a difficult position in defending a large number of seats, even without the pressures described above.

Overall, the Democrats would go on to lose 6 seats in the Senate, though with 69 seats, they retained a very strong majority position.

The Republicans took an open seat in New Jersey, and defeated five Democratic incumbents:

[edit] Senate contests in 1938

State	Incumbent	Party	Status	Opposing Candidates
Alabama	Lister Hill	Democrat	Re-elected, 86.4 - 13.6	J. M. Pennington (Republican)
Arizona	Carl Hayden	Democrat	Re-elected, 76.5 - 23.5	B. H. Clingan (Republican)
Arkansas	Hattie W. Caraway	Democrat	Re-elected, 89.6 - 10.4	C. D. Atkinson (Republican)
California	William G. McAdoo	Democrat	Defeated in primary: Democratic victory, 54.4 - 44.7	Sheridan Downey (Democrat) Philip Bancroft (Republican)
Colorado	Alva B. Adams	Democrat	Re-elected, 58.2 - 40.2	Archibald A. Lee (Republican)
Connecticut	Augustine Lonergan	Democrat	Defeated, 42.9 - 40.0 - 15.8	John A. Danaher (Republican) Bellani Trombley (Socialist)
Florida	Claude Pepper	Democrat	Re-elected, 82.5 - 17.6	Thomas E. Swanson (Republican)
Georgia	Walter F. George	Democrat	Re-elected, unopposed
Idaho	James P. Pope	Democrat	Defeated in primary: Democratic victory, 54.7 - 44.9	D. Worth Clark (Democrat) Donald A. Callahan (Republican)
Illinois	William H. Dieterich	Democrat	Retired: Democratic victory, 51.3 - 48.3	Scott W. Lucas (Democrat) Richard J. Lyons (Republican)
Indiana	Frederick Van Nuys	Democrat	Re-elected, 49.8 - 49.5	Raymond E. Willis (Republican)
Iowa	Guy M. Gillette	Democrat	Re-elected, 49.7 - 49.4	Lester J. Dickinson (Republican)
Kansas	George McGill	Democrat	Defeated, 56.2 - 43.8	Clyde M. Reed (Republican)
Kentucky	Alben W. Barkley	Democrat	Re-elected, 62.0 - 38.0	John P. Haswell (Republican)
Louisiana	John H. Overton	Democrat	Re-elected, 99.8
Maryland	Millard E. Tydings	Democrat	Re-elected, 68.3 - 29.3	Oscar Lesser (Republican)
Missouri	Bennett Champ Clark	Democrat	Re-elected, 60.7 - 39.2	Harry S. Caulfield (Republican)
Nevada	Patrick A. McCarran	Democrat	Re-elected, 59.0 - 41.0	Tasker L. Oddie (Republican)
New Hampshire	Fred H. Brown	Democrat	Defeated, 54.2 - 45.8	Charles W. Tobey (Republican)
New Jersey¹	John G. Milton	Democrat	Retired: Republican victory, 53.0 - 45.7	W. Warren Barbour (Republican) William H. J. Ely (Democrat)
New York²	Royal S. Copeland	Democrat	Deceased: Democratic victory, 53.6 - 45.8	James M. Mead (Democrat) Edward F. Corsi (Republican)
New York	Robert F. Wagner	Democrat	Re-elected, 54.5 - 45.0	John L. O'Brian (Republican)
North Carolina	Robert R. Reynolds	Democrat	Re-elected, 63.8 - 36.2	Charles A. Jonas (Republican)
North Dakota	Gerald P. Nye	Republican	Re-elected, 50.1 - 42.6 - 7.3	William Langer (Independent) J. J. Nygard (Democrat)
Ohio	Robert J. Bulkley	Democrat	Defeated, 53.6 - 46.4	Robert A. Taft (Republican)
Oklahoma	Elmer Thomas	Democrat	Re-elected, 65.4 - 33.9	Harry G. Glasser (Republican)
Oregon	Alexander G. Barry	Republican	Retired: Republican victory, 54.9 - 45.1	Rufus C. Holman (Republican) Willis Mahoney (Democrat)
Pennsylvania	James J. Davis	Republican	Re-elected, 54.7 - 44.4	George H. Earle (Democrat)
South Carolina	Ellison D. Smith	Democrat	Re-elected, unopposed
South Dakota	Gladys Pyle	Republican	Retired: Republican victory, 52.5 - 47.5	Chandler Gurney (Republican) Tom Berry (Democrat)
Tennessee³	George L. Berry	Democrat	Defeated in primary: Democratic victory, 70.5 - 26.2	A. Tom Stewart (Democrat) Harley G. Fowler (Republican)
Utah	Elbert D. Thomas	Democrat	Re-elected, 55.8 - 44.2	Franklin S. Harris (Republican)
Vermont	Ernest W. Gibson	Republican	Re-elected, 65.7 - 34.3	John McGrath (Democrat)
Washington	Homer T. Bone	Democrat	Re-elected, 62.6 - 37.1 - 0.3	Ewing D. Colvin (Republican) Eugene Solie (Socialist Labor)
Wisconsin	F. Ryan Duffy	Democrat	Defeated, 47.7 - 26.6 - 24.7	Alexander Wiley (Republican) Herman L. Ekern (Progressive)