• Source: 1961 United States Senate special election in Texas

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, who had been elected Vice President of the United States.
Republican John Tower, who had been the nominee for the regularly scheduled election in 1960, defeated 70 other candidates to become the first Republican to represent Texas in the Senate since Reconstruction in 1877. Tower was also the first Republican to be popularly elected to the Senate in any former Confederate state.
Because Texas had been a Solid South state, the loss of Johnson's Senate seat would be seen as a stinging defeat for the Kennedy administration and the Democratic Party, given that the Civil Rights Movement was getting off the ground and the increasing sympathy for it amongst increasingly influential liberal Democrats.
One of the Democrats who were defeated in the first round was congressman Jim Wright, who went on to briefly serve as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives in the late 1980s.




Primary election






= Candidates

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Seventy-one candidates were on the ballot for the primary election. At the time, the filing fee for ballot access was only $50 ($528 in 2024 when adjusted for inflation).
The primary was held on April 4.



Major candidates

William A. Blakley (Democrat), incumbent appointee senator
Henry B. Gonzalez (Democrat), state senator from San Antonio
Maury Maverick Jr. (Democrat), attorney and former state representative
John Tower (Republican), political science professor at Midwestern State University and nominee for U.S. Senate in 1960
Will Wilson (Democrat), Attorney General of Texas
Jim Wright (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

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References

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