The1978 United States Senate special election in Minnesota was held on November 7, 1978. Democratic candidateBob Short was defeated by Republican candidateDavid Durenberger.
In 1978, all three key statewide races in Minnesota were up for election—thegovernorship, and both Senate seats (the other Senate seat belonged toWendell Anderson, who, as Governor of Minnesota, resigned his office in order to be appointed by his successor to fill the seat vacated byWalter Mondale, when Mondale resigned in order to becomeVice President of the United States in 1977). But, there was a particular oddity to the three races—all three had incumbents who were never elected to the office in the first place. This became a well played issue by the Republicans—a billboard put up across the state read, "The DFL is going to face something scary -- an election".
WhenHubert Humphrey died in office in January 1978, sitting GovernorRudy Perpich appointed Humphrey's widow,Muriel to sit until a special election could be held later that year. However, Muriel Humphrey opted not to seek election to the seat in her own right, and the DFL nominated formerTexas Rangers ownerBob Short to run in the subsequent special election. Short was rather conservative by DFL standards of the time, and his positions on hot button issues such as abortion, motorboat usage in the Boundary Waters Canoe area, and government spending gave more liberal DFLers pause.
The Independent-Republicans, for their part, nominated theliberal RepublicanDavid Durenberger, creating an unusual race in which the Independent-Republican candidate ran to the left of the DFL candidate. In addition to the general sense of dissatisfaction voters felt for the DFL, the party also had to contend with a large number of liberal DFLers crossing party lines to vote for Durenberger. As a result, Durenberger won in a 26.9-percent landslide as the governorship and both U.S. Senate seats switched into Republican hands.
The results in Minnesota marked the first time the GOP had held all three offices sinceJoseph H. Ball left the Senate in January 1949. Additionally, this election and the regular election both marked the first time since1958 that both Senate seats in a state flipped from one party to the other in a single election cycle.
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