Election to the United States Senate in 1964

Election to the United States Senate in 1964
3rd November 1964
Previous election 1962 ← Next election → 1966
Group leader	Mike Mansfield	Everett Dirksen
Political party	Democratic Party	Republican Party
Sit before the election	66	34
Seats after the election	68	32
Profit loss	+2	−2
Total votes	30.217.130	22,654,661
Share of votes	56.3%	42.2%
Results by state
Pre-election majority leader Mike Mansfield Democrat		Election majority leader Mike Mansfield Democrat

  

A total of 100 seats

• Dem .: 68
• Rep .: 32

The 1964 Senate election in the United States took place on Tuesday, November 3, 1964. Parallel made the choice to the House of Representatives and the presidential election . A total of 35 mandates were available.

Choice and outcome

The election took place a year after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and was generally unfavorable for opposition Republicans. The Democrats were able to expand their already clear majority from 66 seats to 68 seats in the 100-member Congress Chamber. This gave the Democrats a two-thirds majority in the Senate. It was the last time until today that a party achieved such a majority. The Democrats won three new seats from the Republicans in the states of New York , New Mexico and Maryland . Only in California was the Republican George Murphy just able to prevail against the incumbent Pierre Salinger . However, it was a by-election, as Salinger had only been appointed Senator by California Governor Pat Brown in the middle of the year to take a vacant seat.

The election result meant that the re-elected President Lyndon B. Johnson had a large majority to push through his Great Society reform program .

The newly elected Senate was constituted as provided by the constitution on the third day of the following January, i.e. on January 3, 1965.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Information page of the US Congress (PDF; 2.2 MB)
2. ^ Robert Dallek : Lyndon B. Johnson. Portrait of a President. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 2004, ISBN 0-19-515921-7 , p. 180 ff.