Robert Angers - Congressional Campaign, 1964

Congressional Campaign, 1964

Angers was a Democrat until 1960, when he joined the Republican Party. In 1964, he supported Charlton Lyons for governor of Louisiana. In July 1964, Angers was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in San Francisco, where he supported U.S. Senator Barry M. Goldwater for U.S. President. He lashed out at the then all Democratic congressional delegation from Louisiana, calling the members "so-called southern conservatives who are really liberals ... that vote with Lyndon Johnson on nearly all major bills."

Angers himself ran as the GOP candidate for the Lafayette-based 3rd Congressional District seat against the 16-year incumbent, Democrat Edwin E. Willis of St. Martinville. Angers received 31,806 votes (37.7 percent) to Willis's 52,532 (62.3 percent) and lost every parish in the district. In Lafayette Parish, Angers procured 49.6 percent of the vote and outpolled Goldwater there by 3.5 percentage points. Three other Republicans ran unsuccessfully for U.S. House seats from Louisiana that year: future Governor David C. Treen in the New Orleans suburbs, Floyd O. Crawford (1907–1995) of Baton Rouge, and William Stewart Walker of Winnfield, who opposed the conservative Democrat Speedy O. Long in the since defunct 8th congressional district. Angers was a Louisiana delegate to the 1968 Republican convention which nominated the Nixon-Agnew ticket. In 1974, however, Angers left the GOP and re-registered as an Independent.