Elizabeth Dole | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2003 | |
| Chair of theNational Republican Senatorial Committee | |
| In office January 3, 2005 – January 3, 2007 | |
| Leader | Bill Frist |
| Preceded by | George Allen |
| Succeeded by | John Ensign |
| United States Senator fromNorth Carolina | |
| In office January 3, 2003 – January 3, 2009 | |
| Preceded by | Jesse Helms |
| Succeeded by | Kay Hagan |
| 20thUnited States Secretary of Labor | |
| In office January 25, 1989 – November 23, 1990 | |
| President | George H. W. Bush |
| Preceded by | Ann McLaughlin |
| Succeeded by | Lynn M. Martin |
| 8thUnited States Secretary of Transportation | |
| In office February 7, 1983 – September 30, 1987 | |
| President | Ronald Reagan |
| Preceded by | Drew Lewis |
| Succeeded by | James H. Burnley IV |
| 5thDirector of the Office of Public Liaison | |
| In office January 20, 1981 – February 7, 1983 | |
| President | Ronald Reagan |
| Preceded by | Anne Wexler |
| Succeeded by | Faith Whittlesey |
| Commissioner of theFederal Trade Commission | |
| In office December 4, 1973 – March 9, 1979 | |
| Appointed by | Richard Nixon |
| Preceded by | Mary Gardiner Jones |
| Succeeded by | Patricia Bailey |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Mary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford (1936-07-29)July 29, 1936 (age 89) |
| Party | Democratic (before 1975) Republican (1975–present) |
| Spouse | |
| Education | Duke University (BA) Harvard University (MEd,JD) |
| Awards | Presidential Medal of Freedom (2024) |
| Signature |  |
Dole opening aSenate Aging Committee hearing on Medicare drug benefit implementation. Recorded February 2, 2006 | |
Mary Elizabeth Alexander Dole (néeHanford; born July 29, 1936)[1] is an American attorney, author, and politicianwho served as aUnited States senator fromNorth Carolina from 2003 to 2009. A member of theRepublican Party, she previously served in five presidential administrations, including asU.S. Secretary of Transportation underRonald Reagan from 1983 to 1987 and asU.S. Secretary of Labor under Reagan's successor,George H. W. Bush, from 1989 until 1990. Dole then left government to serve as president of theAmerican Red Cross from 1991 to 1999; she departed from that position to seek theRepublican nomination in the2000 presidential election, but eventually withdrew from the race.
Dole graduated from Duke University in 1958 and earned a Juris Doctor degree fromHarvard Law School in 1965. Throughout her public career, she was the first woman to hold a number of positions, including secretary of transportation, becoming the first woman to serve in two differentpresidential cabinet positions for two presidents after being appointed secretary of labor, as well as the first femaleU.S. senator from North Carolina and chair of theNational Republican Senatorial Committee. She was also the third female secretary of labor and just the second woman to lead the American Red Cross since its founder,Clara Barton. She is the widow of U.S. senatorBob Dole fromKansas, who served as the RepublicanSenate leader and was the party's presidential nominee in the1996 election and vice presidential nominee in the1976 election.
Dole was born Mary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford inSalisbury, North Carolina, on July 29, 1936, to Mary Ella (née Cathey; 1901–2004) and John Van Hanford (1893–1978).[1][2]
Dole attendedDuke University and graduated with distinction inpolitical science on June 2, 1958. She was a finalist for an Angier B. Duke scholarship, a full-tuition award given to outstanding applicants who matriculate at Duke.[3] She was elected toPhi Beta Kappa and was a recipient of the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award, a national prize given to those exemplifying the ideal of service to others.
Among her activities at Duke were the chapel choir,Chanticleer (yearbook) business staff, freshman advisory council, the Order of the White Duchy (a local honorary society for outstanding women student leaders, a female counterpart of theOrder of the Red Friars), Phi Kappa Delta (a local leadership honorary for senior women), andPi Sigma Alpha (a national political-science honorary society). Dole is a sister ofDelta Delta Delta.[4] She was also elected president of the woman's student government association, 1958 May queen, and "leader of the year" by the student newspaper,The Chronicle. Dole has remained involved with Duke University, serving at various points in time as president of the Duke University alumnae association, and a member of the board of trustees and board of visitors.[5] She has spoken formally at Duke several times.
Following her graduation from Duke, she did her post-graduate work atOxford in 1959. After Oxford, she took a job as a student teacher atMelrose High School inMelrose, Massachusetts, for the 1959–1960 school year.[6] While teaching, she also pursued her master's degree in education fromHarvard University, which she earned in 1960, followed by aJ.D. fromHarvard Law School in 1965.[7] At graduation, she was one of 24 women in a class of 550 students.[8] She is an alumna of thePhi Beta Kappa honor society.
Dole, who had campaigned for theKennedy–Johnsonpresidential ticketin 1960,[9] began working in 1967 as a staff assistant to theSecretary of Health, Education, and Welfare in theLyndon B. Johnson administration.[10]
When manyDemocrats left the White House followingRichard Nixon's replacement of Johnson, Dole did not. From 1969 to 1973, she served as deputy assistant to President Nixon for consumer affairs.[11] In 1973, Nixon appointed her to a seven-year term on theFederal Trade Commission.[7]
Dole first met her future husband, Bob Dole, in the spring of 1972 at a meeting arranged by her boss and mentor,Virginia Knauer.[12] The couple dated, and she became his second wife on December 6, 1975, in theWashington National Cathedral.[13] They had no children, though she is stepmother to Bob's adult daughter Robin from his first marriage of 24 years, which ended in divorce in 1972. She attended individually, and later with her husband, theFoundry United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C., before joining theNational Presbyterian Church in 1996.[13] Articles at the time reported that the Doles stopped attending Foundry in 1995, finding the pastor at the time,J. Philip Wogaman, too liberal.[14]
In 1975, she became a Republican. She took a leave from her post as a Federal Trade Commissioner for several months in 1976 to campaign for her husband for vice president of the United States, when he ran on the Republican ticket withGerald Ford.[7] She later resigned from the FTC in 1979, to campaign for her husband's 1980 presidential run. During the 1970s, Dole was a self-described member of theWomen's Liberation Movement and helped reform laws to ensure equal credit for women. She was also a supporter of theEqual Rights Amendment to theUnited States Constitution.[15]
She served as director of theWhite House Office of Public Liaison, from 1981 to 1983 and asUnited States Secretary of Transportation from 1983 to 1987 under Ronald Reagan. She was also appointed by Reagan to chair task forces that sought to reform federal and state laws to ensure equal rights for women. She was thefirst woman appointed Secretary of Transportation. In this role, she was the first woman to have served as the head of a branch of theUnited States military, as theUnited States Coast Guard was under the Department of Transportation at the time. Dole's appointment was "particularly irritating" toconservative activists, since "though at least nominally opposed to abortion, [she was] viewed by the right as [an] aggressivefeminist."[16]
During her tenure, theNational Highway Traffic Safety Administration mandated the installation of acenter high-mounted stop lamp on new cars; these are sometimes called "Liddy Lights" in her recognition.[17] She worked with MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) to pass laws withholding federal highway funding from any state that had a drinking age below 21. The state government ofSouth Dakota opposed the drinking age law and sued Dole in the caseSouth Dakota v. Dole, but the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Dole. She oversaw the privatization of the national freight railroad,Conrail. She initiated randomdrug testing within the Department of Transportation. By 1984 Dole had stopped trying to get Reagan to support the Equal Rights Amendment. She was quoted in the press that year saying, "He's not going to change on that."[18]
Dole served asUnited States Secretary of Labor from 1989 to 1990 under George H. W. Bush; she is the first woman to serve in two different Cabinet positions in the administrations of two presidents. Her tenure as both U.S. Transportation Secretary and U.S. Labor Secretary focused heavily on improving public safety and workplace safety and health.[citation needed]
In 1991, Dole became thepresident of the American Red Cross.[19] She served until 1999. She was the second woman to serve as president sinceClara Barton founded the organization in 1881. She restructured the world's largest humanitarian organization during her eight years as president, serving as a volunteer in her first year. She also led a transformation of the way the Red Cross collects, tests, and distributes one-half of the nation's blood supply.[20]
Dole's husbandBob Dole was the Republican nominee in theUS presidential election of 1996. Elizabeth Dole, who would have becomeFirst Lady had her husband won the election, or theSecond Lady of the United States, had Gerald Ford won the1976 election, received recognition for her speech at the1996 Republican National Convention, during which she walked out into the audience while talking conversationally about her husband's qualities.[citation needed]
 | |
| Campaign | 2000 United States presidential election |
|---|---|
| Candidate | Elizabeth Dole 20thUnited States Secretary of Labor (1989–1990) 8thUnited States Secretary of Transportation (1983–1987) Director of the Office of Public Liaison (1981–1983) Commissioner of theFederal Trade Commission (1973–1979) |
| Affiliation | Republican Party |
| Status | Withdrawn |
| Launched | March 10, 1999 (Exploratory committee) |
| Suspended | October 1999 |
| Website | |
| www.edole2000.org (archived – May 8, 1999) | |
Elizabeth Dole ran for theRepublican nomination in the2000 United States presidential election.
Speculation of a presidential campaign became widespread after Dole announced her departure from her job as president of the Red Cross on January 4, 1999.[21]
Dole announced she was forming an exploratory committee on March 10, 1999.[22]
While Dole had been an active participant in her husband's campaign four years prior, he was largely absent from the campaign trail during her campaign.[23][24]
In August, Dole placed third – behindGeorge W. Bush andSteve Forbes – in a large field in theIowa Straw Poll (the first, non-binding, test of electability for theRepublican Party nomination). The Iowa Straw Poll differed from the national polls where she was second only to Bush; SenatorJohn McCain was in third place.[citation needed]
Dole withdrew from race in October 1999 before any of theprimaries, largely due to inadequatefundraising even though aGallup poll had her in second place in the presidential race at 11% behind George W. Bush at 60% as late as October 1999.[25]
Shortly before the2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Bush campaign sources said Elizabeth Dole was on the short list to be named the vice-presidential nominee, along with Michigan GovernorJohn Engler, New York GovernorGeorge Pataki, Pennsylvania GovernorTom Ridge, and former Missouri SenatorJohn Danforth.[26] Many pundits believed that Dole was the frontrunner for the vice presidential nomination. Bush then surprised most pundits by selecting formerU.S. Secretary of DefenseDick Cheney, who was actually in charge of leading Bush's search for a vice presidential nominee.[citation needed]
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In late December 2001, Dole shifted her official residency from the Doles' condominium in theWatergate complex to her mother's home in Salisbury to seek election to the U.S. Senate.[27][28] The seat was made available by the retirement of RepublicanJesse Helms. Although Dole had not lived regularly in North Carolina since 1959 and had been a resident of the Washington area for most of the time since the mid-1960s, the state and national Republican establishment quickly cleared the field for her. She handily won the Republican primary with 80 percent of the vote over a lesser-known candidate,Ada Fisher. In the November general election, she defeated herDemocratic opponentErskine Bowles, a formerchief of staff to former PresidentBill Clinton, by an eight-point margin.
Her election to the Senate marked the first time a spouse of a former Senator was elected to the Senate from a different state from that of her spouse. (AlthoughKansas SenatorNancy Landon Kassebaum married formerTennessee SenatorHoward Baker, the marriage occurred after Kassebaum and Baker both had finished their service in the Senate.) Dole was criticized by Democrats (including then-North Carolina SenatorJohn Edwards and her challenger,Erskine Bowles) during her first Senate campaign over the fact that for over 40 years prior to her nomination, she had not lived in North Carolina.
In November 2004, following Republican gains in the United States Senate, Dole narrowly edged out SenatorNorm Coleman of Minnesota for the post of chairman of theNational Republican Senatorial Committee. She is the first woman to become chair of the NRSC. During her election cycle as chairperson, her Democratic Party counterpart, SenatorChuck Schumer raised significantly more money, and experienced more success in recruiting candidates. In the November election, Dole's party lost six U.S. Senate seats to the Democrats, thus losing control of the U.S. Senate. Dole was replaced as NRSC chair by SenatorJohn Ensign ofNevada following the 2006 midterms.
Dole was initially a heavy favorite for re-election, especially after several potential top-tier challengers such as CongressmanBrad Miller, GovernorMike Easley and former GovernorJim Hunt all declined to compete against Dole.[29][30] Ultimately,Kay Hagan, astate senator fromGreensboro, won the Democratic primary election against Jim Neal and became Dole's general election opponent. Reports late in the campaign suggested that Dole suffered fromBarack Obama's decision to aggressively contest North Carolina in the presidential election,[31] while Hagan received substantial support from independent527 groups lobbying/advertising against Dole,[30] as well as the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, which spent more money in North Carolina than in any other state during the 2008 election season.[30] Dole undertook an eight-day "ElizaBus" tour of the state in the days leading up to election day.[32]
In late October, Dole released a controversial television ad attacking Hagan for reportedly taking donations from individuals involved in theGodless Americans PAC, a group that advocates for the rights of people who do not believe in God. The ad also included a female voice saying, "There is no god." Hagan's campaign said the ad sought to put inflammatory words in their candidate's mouth. Hagan, who was a member of thePresbyterian Church and a formerSunday school teacher,[33] condemned the ad as "fabricated and pathetic," and, according to Hagan's campaign website, a cease-and-desist letter was "hand-delivered to Dole's Raleigh office and to her home at the Watergate in Washington, DC."[34] Hagan also filed a lawsuit inWake County Superior Court accusing Dole ofdefamation andlibel.[35][36] The ad met significant criticism from some members of the public as well as national media outlets. After the first ad Hagan received over 3,600 contributions, including major donors as well as individual support from a range of persons who believed in the right to participate in civil government free of religious orthodoxy requirements. Following the second ad Hagan's lead doubled according to some polls.[37]
In the 2008 election, Dole lost by a wider-than-expected margin, taking 44 percent of the vote to Hagan's 53 percent. It has been speculated that the outcry over the "Godless" ad contributed to Dole's loss.[38] Hagan trounced Dole in the state's five largest counties –Mecklenburg,Wake,Guilford,Forsyth andDurham. Hagan also dominated most of the eastern portion of the state, which had been the backbone of Helms' past Senate victories. While Dole dominated theCharlotte suburbs and most of the heavily Republican Foothills region, it was not enough to save her seat.
Dole's voting record was somewhat more conservative than that of her husband, though slightly less conservative than that of Helms. She has a lifetime rating of 92 from theAmerican Conservative Union.[citation needed]
Dole worked with other senators such asChuck Hagel to draft and attempt to pass legislation reforming housing financing regulation; the bill did not go up for a vote.[39]
In September 2008, Dole joined theGang of 20, a bipartisan group working towards comprehensive energy reform, which pushed for a bill that would encourage state-by-state decisions onoffshore drilling and authorize billions of dollars for conservation and alternative energy.[40]
As a member of theU.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, Dole is credited with helping to prevent any closures of North Carolina military bases despite threats from theDepartment of Defense.[41] In 2007, she sponsored legislation which would have granted federal recognition of a North Carolina Native American tribe, theLumbee based inRobeson County.[42]
Dole was a member of the following U.S. Senate committees:
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In 2012, Dole established the Elizabeth Dole Foundation,[43] dedicated to helping caregivers of "wounded warriors".[44]
Dole commissioned theRAND Corporation to develop the first nationwide comprehensive, evidence-based report on the needs of military and veteran caregivers.[45] The two-year study includes an environmental scan of available services, a gap analysis, and recommendations for meeting the enormous challenges of America's hidden helpers – the young spouses, mothers, fathers and other loved ones caring for those who cared for us. The study was generously supported by theWounded Warrior Project, theLilly Endowment, and the Cannon Foundation.[46]
The foundation selects military and veteran caregivers from each state to serve a two-year Fellowship with the foundation. The Dole Fellows represent a vast array of military caregivers: spouses, parents, siblings and friends, and use their voice to help bring awareness on a national scale.[47] The foundation also has a National Coalition Program to bring together private and public entities to create substantial change.[48] in 2022 the foundation selected and began working with the civil rights icon and veteranBobby Grier.[49][50]
Dole accepted no salary from the Red Cross during her first year as president of the organization.[52]
Dole is an honorary board member of the humanitarian organizationWings of Hope.[53]
In 1995, Dole was inducted into theNational Women's Hall of Fame.[54]
In 1999, Dole received the S. Roger Horchow Award for Greatest Public Service by a Private Citizen, an award given out annually byJefferson Awards.[55]
In 2014, Dole was inducted intoIndiana Wesleyan University's Society of World Changers for her humanitarian public service efforts.[56]
In July 2018, Dole was honored with the 4th annualLeo K. Thorsness Leadership Award. Named after the Medal of Honor recipient, the award recognizes outstanding service to veteran communities.[57][58]
In September 2023, Dole was awarded the United States Military Academy's highest civilian award, theSylvanus Thayer Award. Named after the father of the academy, the award recognizes outstanding selfless service to the nation.
In 2024, Dole was awarded thePresidential Medal of Freedom by PresidentJoe Biden.[59]
In 2025 a stretch ofInterstate 85 through Salisbury, North Carolina, her hometown, was named after Dole.[60]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | Elizabeth Dole | 1,248,664 | 53.56 | +0.92 | |
| Democratic | Erskine Bowles | 1,047,983 | 44.96 | −0.96 | |
| Libertarian | Sean Haugh | 33,807 | 1.45 | +0.46 | |
| write-in | Paul DeLaney | 727 | 0.03 | +0.02 | |
| Majority | 200,681 | 8.6 | +1.88 | ||
| Turnout | 2,331,181 | ||||
| Republicanhold | |||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | Elizabeth Dole (incumbent) | 460,665 | 90.0 | ||
| Republican | Pete DiLauro | 51,406 | 10.0 | ||
| Turnout | 512,071 | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Kay Hagan | 2,249,311 | 52.65 | +7.7 | |
| Republican | Elizabeth Dole (incumbent) | 1,887,510 | 44.18 | −9.4 | |
| Libertarian | Chris Cole | 133,430 | 3.12 | +1.6 | |
| Other | write-ins | 1,719 | 0.0 | 0 | |
| Majority | 361,801 | 8.47 | |||
| Turnout | 4,271,970 | ||||
| Democraticgain fromRepublican | Swing | ||||
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Resources from Wikiversity| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Director of the Office of Public Liaison 1981–1983 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | United States Secretary of Transportation 1983–1987 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | United States Secretary of Labor 1989–1990 | Succeeded by |
| Non-profit organization positions | ||
| Preceded by | President of theAmerican Red Cross 1991–1999 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Republican nominee forU.S. Senator fromNorth Carolina (Class 2) 2002,2008 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chair of theNational Republican Senatorial Committee 2005–2007 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. Senate | ||
| Preceded by | U.S. Senator (Class 2) from North Carolina 2003–2009 Served alongside:John Edwards,Richard Burr | Succeeded by |
| U.S. order of precedence (ceremonial) | ||
| Preceded byas Former U.S. Cabinet Member | Order of precedence of the United States as Former U.S. Cabinet Member | Succeeded byas Former U.S. Cabinet Member |
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