Political Life
Humphrey was elected to the Minnesota Senate in 1972 and served as a state senator from 1973 to 1983. He was elected attorney general in 1982, one of the DFL Party's most popular candidates ever in terms of popular vote. He served in the office for four consecutive terms, from 1983 to 1999.
In 1988, he ran for the same US Senate seat that his father and his mother previously held, but was defeated by incumbent Independent-Republican Senator David Durenberger. Despite this loss, Humphrey remained well regarded in Minnesota political circles and around the country: he served as president of the National Association of Attorneys General, and in 1996 President Bill Clinton gratefully welcomed him as the state chairperson of his reelection campaign. By 1998 he was again encouraged to run for higher office, and entered the DFL gubernatorial primary, winning handily in a crowded field (which included another scion of an eminent Minnesota political family, Ted Mondale). In the general election, both Humphrey and Republican candidate Norm Coleman lost to the third-party candidacy of Jesse Ventura in a tumultuous race.
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