The 1961 United States Senate special election in Texas was held on May 27, 1961. The election was held to replace outgoing Senator

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

, who had been elected Vice President of the United States. Republican

John Tower John Goodwin Tower (September 29, 1925 – April 5, 1991) was an American politician, serving as a Republican United States Senator from Texas from 1961 to 1985. He was the first Republican Senator elected from Texas since Reconstruction. Towe ...

, who had been the nominee for the regularly scheduled election in 1960, defeated seventy other candidates to become the first Republican to represent Texas in the Senate since Reconstruction. Tower was also the first post-

Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology * Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...

Republican to win a statewide election in Texas, the first to win a Senate popular election in a former Confederate state, and the third to win any election to the Senate from the former Confederacy.

Primary election

Candidates

Seventy-one candidates were on the ballot for the primary election. At the time, the filing fee for ballot access was only $50. The primary was held on April 4.

Major candidates

William A. Blakley William Arvis "Dollar Bill" Blakley (November 17, 1898 – January 5, 1976) was an American politician and businessman from the state of Texas. Blakley was part of the conservative wing of the Texas Democratic Party. He served twice as an interim ...

(Democrat), incumbent appointee Senator * Henry B. Gonzalez (Democrat), State Senator from San Antonio * Maury Maverick Jr. (Democrat), attorney and former State Representative *

(Republican), political science professor at

Midwestern State University Midwestern State University (MSU Texas) is a public liberal arts university in Wichita Falls, Texas. In 2020 it had 5,141 undergraduate students. It is the state's only public institution focused on the liberal arts. History Founded in 1922 ...

and nominee for U.S. Senate in 1960 * Will Wilson (Democrat), Attorney General of Texas *

Jim Wright James Claude Wright Jr. (December 22, 1922 – May 6, 2015) was an American politician who served as the 48th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1987 to 1989. He represented Texas's 12th congressional district as a ...

(Democrat), U.S. Representative from Fort Worth

Minor candidates

None of these candidates received more than 0.5% of the popular vote.

Runoff election

Results

References

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1961 Events January * January 3 ** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba (Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015). ** Aero Flight 311 (K ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and po ...

Texas 1961 Texas 1961 United States Senate 1961