1962 United States Senate election in Alabama

none March 2026 September 2023 1962 United States Senate election in Alabama Alabama presidential no 1956 United States Senate election in Alabama 1956 1968 United States Senate election in Alabama 1968 November 6, 1962 150x150px File:Listerhill (1) (retouched) (cropped).jpg J. Lister Hill Alabama Democratic Party 201,937 50.86% James D. Martin.jpg James D. Martin Alabama Republican Party 195,134 49.14% 1962 United States Senate election in Alabama results map by county.svg 250px County resultsHill: #7996E2 50–60% #6674de 60–70% #584cde 70–80% #3933e5 80–90%Martin: #E27F7F 50–60% #D75D5D 60–70% #D72F30 70–80% U.S. Senator J. Lister Hill Alabama Democratic Party J. Lister Hill Alabama Democratic Party The 1962 United States Senate election in Alabama was held on November 6, 1962, to elect one of Alabama's members to the United States Senate. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator J. Lister Hill won re-election to his fifth, and last, full term. Democratic primary Candidates J. Lister Hill, incumbent U.S. Senator since 1938 Donald Gunter Hallmark John G. Crommelin, naval officer, white supremacist and perennial candidate Results Alabama Democratic senatorial primary, 1962alabama.gov |title=Alabama Official and Statistical Register, 1963 |format=PDFCandidateVotesPercentage J. Lister Hill 363,613 73.7% Donald Gunter Hallmark 72,855 14.8% John G. Crommelin 56,822 11.5% Totals 493,290 100.00% Republican primary Candidates James D. Martin, businessman Results James D. Martin ran unopposed in the Republican Primary. General election Candidates J. Lister Hill, incumbent U.S. Senator since 1938 (Democratic) James D. Martin, businessman (Republican) Campaign In 1962, Hill, a pro-labor New Deal liberal, sought his last term in office but faced an unusually strong Republican opponent in James D. Martin, a petroleum products distributor from Gadsden. Like Hill, Martin supported the Tennessee Valley Authority, a New Deal project begun in 1933. Martin noted that the original sponsor of the inter-state development agency was a Republican U.S. senator, George W. Norris of Nebraska. Martin proposed in the campaign that the TVA headquarters be relocated from Knoxville, Tennessee, to its original point of development, Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Hill had worked to fund other public works projects too, including the deepening of the Mobile Ship Channel, the building of the Gainesville Lock and Dam in Sumter County, and the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, an ultimately successful strategy to link the Tennessee River with the Gulf of Mexico. In the campaign against Martin, Hill said, "If Alabama is to continue the progress and development she has achieved, she cannot do so by deserting the great Democratic Party of Franklin Roosevelt.""James Douglas Martin and the Alabama Republican Resurgence," p. 55 Senator Hill pledged to seek renewed funding for the Redstone Arsenal and Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and accused Eisenhower of having neglected the space program while the Soviet Union was placing Sputnik into the atmosphere. Strongly endorsed by organized labor, Hill accused the GOP of exploiting the South to enrich the North and the East and attacked the legacy of former President Herbert Hoover and the earlier "evils" of Reconstruction. Hill predicted that Alabama voters would bury the Republicans "under an avalanche."The Mobile Register, October 2, 25, and 27, 1962; Walter Dean Burnham, "The Alabama Senatorial Election of 1962: Return of Inter-Party Competition," Journal of Politics, 26 (November 1964), p. 811 The 1962 mid-term elections were overshadowed by the Cuban Missile Crisis. Martin joined Hill in endorsing the quarantine of Cuba but insisted that the problem was an outgrowth of the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961. Hill said that Soviet premier, Nikita S. Khrushchev, had "chickened out" because "the one thing the communists respect is strength."Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, October 12, 1962, p. 1832; Mobile Register, October 24, 1962; The Huntsville Times October 26 and November 2, 1962 The New York Times speculated that the blockade ordered by Kennedy may have spared Hill from defeat.The New York Times, November 7, 1962, p. 44 Despite the postwar bipartisan consensus for foreign aid, Martin hammered away at Hill's backing for such programs. He decried subsidies to foreign manufacturers and workers at the expense of Alabama's then large force of textile workers: "These foreign giveaways have cost taxpayers billions of dollars and turned many areas of Alabama into distressed areas." Martin also condemned aid to communist countries and the impact of the United Nations on national policy. He questioned Hill's congressional seniority as of little use when troops were dispatched in the fall of 1962 to compel the desegregation of the University of Mississippi.Mobile Register, October 26, 30, and November 1, 1962; Alexander P. Lamis, The Two-Party South (New York, 1984), p. 77. The Hill-Martin race drew considerable national attention. The liberal columnist Drew Pearson wrote from Decatur, Alabama, that "for the first time since Reconstruction, the two-party system, which political scientists talk about for the South, but never expect to materialize, may come to Alabama."The Huntsville Times, October 24, 1962The New York Times viewed the Alabama race as the most vigorous off-year effort in modern southern history but predicted a Hill victory on the basis that Martin had failed to gauge "bread-and-butter" issues and was perceived by many as an "ultraconservative."The New York Times, October 31, 1962, p. 14 Results 1962 United States Senate election in Alabamahttp://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=1962&off=3&elect=0&fips=1&f=0 1962 Senatorial General Election Results — Alabama Dave Leip's U.S. Election Atlas Alabama Democratic Party J. Lister Hill (incumbent) 201,937 50.86 Alabama Republican Party James D. Martin 195,134 49.14 Independent (politician) Write-in candidates 8These write-in votes were not listed by county 0.00 397,079 100.00 Alabama Democratic Party Results by county +1962 United States Senate election in Alabama by countyhttps://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=3397 Our Campaigns AL US Senate, November 06, 1962 CountyJoseph Lister HillDemocraticJames Douglas MartinRepublican MarginTotal votes cast # % # % # % Autauga 653 35.32% 1,196 64.68% -543 -29.37% 1,849 Baldwin 2,502 37.04% 4,253 62.96% -1,751 -25.92% 6,755 Barbour 1,088 44.39% 1,363 55.61% -275 -11.22% 2,451 Bibb 1,038 49.76% 1,048 50.24% -10 -0.48% 2,086 Blount 1,961 53.42% 1,710 46.58% 251 6.84% 3,671 Bullock 876 54.48% 732 45.52% 144 8.96% 1,608 Butler 1,291 43.67% 1,665 56.33% -374 -12.65% 2,956 Calhoun 5,270 60.60% 3,426 39.40% 1,844 21.21% 8,696 Chambers 2,285 68.83% 1,035 31.17% 1,250 37.65% 3,320 Cherokee 1,570 82.46% 334 17.54% 1,236 64.92% 1,904 Chilton 2,395 49.33% 2,460 50.67% -65 -1.34% 4,855 Choctaw 413 28.21% 1,051 71.79% -638 -43.58% 1,464 Clarke 902 34.56% 1,708 65.44% -806 -30.88% 2,610 Clay 1,071 59.20% 738 40.80% 333 18.41% 1,809 Cleburne 702 64.23% 391 35.77% 311 28.45% 1,093 Coffee 2,545 56.42% 1,966 43.58% 579 12.84% 4,511 Colbert 4,859 71.09% 1,976 28.91% 2,883 42.18% 6,835 Conecuh 1,226 42.31% 1,672 57.69% -446 -15.39% 2,898 Coosa 686 52.49% 621 47.51% 65 4.97% 1,307 Covington 2,175 43.35% 2,842 56.65% -667 -13.29% 5,017 Crenshaw 1,276 62.83% 755 37.17% 521 25.65% 2,031 Cullman 5,078 54.82% 4,185 45.18% 893 9.64% 9,263 Dale 1,622 47.04% 1,826 52.96% -204 -5.92% 3,448 Dallas 1,539 35.57% 2,788 64.43% -1,249 -28.87% 4,327 DeKalb 5,440 54.66% 4,512 45.34% 928 9.32% 9,952 Elmore 1,693 40.44% 2,493 59.56% -800 -19.11% 4,186 Escambia 1,822 40.46% 2,681 59.54% -859 -19.08% 4,503 Etowah 8,548 57.14% 6,413 42.86% 2,135 14.27% 14,961 Fayette 1,281 55.33% 1,034 44.67% 247 10.67% 2,315 Franklin 3,054 53.78% 2,625 46.22% 429 7.55% 5,679 Geneva 1,415 47.07% 1,591 52.93% -176 -5.85% 3,006 Greene 677 59.91% 453 40.09% 224 19.82% 1,130 Hale 899 53.77% 773 46.23% 126 7.54% 1,672 Henry 910 48.05% 984 51.95% -74 -3.91% 1,894 Houston 1,722 29.64% 4,087 70.36% -2,365 -40.71% 5,809 Jackson 2,996 79.18% 788 20.82% 2,208 58.35% 3,784 Jefferson 34,691 42.41% 47,102 57.59% -12,411 -15.17% 81,793 Lamar 1,104 66.15% 565 33.85% 539 32.29% 1,669 Lauderdale 5,856 70.23% 2,482 29.77% 3,374 40.47% 8,338 Lawrence 2,021 74.91% 677 25.09% 1,344 49.81% 2,698 Lee 1,843 56.43% 1,423 43.57% 420 12.86% 3,266 Limestone 2,522 78.37% 696 21.63% 1,826 56.74% 3,218 Lowndes 340 33.90% 663 66.10% -323 -32.20% 1,003 Macon 1,888 75.01% 629 24.99% 1,259 50.02% 2,517 Madison 7,880 67.63% 3,772 32.37% 4,108 35.26% 11,652 Marengo 633 28.18% 1,613 71.82% -980 -43.63% 2,246 Marion 1,863 53.12% 1,644 46.88% 219 6.24% 3,507 Marshall 3,573 62.94% 2,104 37.06% 1,469 25.88% 5,677 Mobile 17,067 47.95% 18,528 52.05% -1,461 -4.10% 35,595 Monroe 1,370 51.02% 1,315 48.98% 55 2.05% 2,685 Montgomery 7,873 42.03% 10,859 57.97% -2,986 -15.94% 18,732 Morgan 6,125 68.56% 2,809 31.44% 3,316 37.12% 8,934 Perry 600 40.03% 899 59.97% -299 -19.95% 1,499 Pickens 821 39.68% 1,248 60.32% -427 -20.64% 2,069 Pike 1,229 44.55% 1,530 55.45% -301 -10.91% 2,759 Randolph 1,556 62.72% 925 37.28% 631 25.43% 2,481 Russell 821 51.99% 758 48.01% 63 3.99% 1,579 Shelby 2,116 48.04% 2,289 51.96% -173 -3.93% 4,405 St. Clair 2,418 56.89% 1,832 43.11% 586 13.79% 4,250 Sumter 458 35.02% 850 64.98% -392 -29.97% 1,308 Talladega 3,649 53.90% 3,121 46.10% 528 7.80% 6,770 Tallapoosa 1,810 54.44% 1,515 45.56% 295 8.87% 3,325 Tuscaloosa 5,573 57.79% 4,071 42.21% 1,502 15.57% 9,644 Walker 5,597 57.10% 4,205 42.90% 1,392 14.20% 9,802 Washington 644 33.59% 1,273 66.41% -629 -32.81% 1,917 Wilcox 467 38.69% 740 61.31% -273 -22.62% 1,207 Winston 2,049 42.07% 2,822 57.93% -773 -15.87% 4,871Total201,93750.86%195,13449.14%6,8031.71%397,071 See also United States elections, 1962 United States Senate elections, 1962 Notes References Alabama 1962 Category:1962 Alabama elections