Dale Bumpers - U.S. Senate Elections

U.S. Senate Elections

Bumpers was elected to the United States Senate in 1974. He unseated the incumbent James William Fulbright in the Democratic primary by a wide margin and then overwhelmed the Republican lawyer and banker John Harris Jones (born 1922) of Pine Bluff. Jones had run earlier as a Democrat for the United States House of Representatives from Arkansas's 4th congressional district in 1956 against Representative William F. Norrell, in 1961 against Norrell's widow, Representative Catherine Dorris Norrell, and in 1966 for the open seat vacated by the resignation of Oren Harris, when he challenged fellow Democrat David Hampton Pryor of Camden and Republican A. Lynn Lowe of Texarkana.

In the 1974 Senate race, Jones accused Bumpers of excessive spending as governor, citing the construction of a $186 million state office complex. Bumpers not only ignored Jones but instead campaigned mostly for the young Democrat Bill Clinton, who failed in that heavily Democratic year to unseat Republican U.S. Representative John Paul Hammerschmidt in Arkansas's 3rd congressional district. Bumpers polled 461,056 votes (84.9 percent) to Jones's 82,026 (15.1) percent, the weakest Republican showing since the insurance executive Victor M. Wade of Batesville lost to Fulbright in 1944.

Time magazine wrote that "many to their sorrow have had trouble taking Bumpers seriously ... Dandy Dale, the man with one speech, a shoeshine, and a smile."

In 1980, Bumpers comfortably survived the Ronald W. Reagan victory in Arkansas by defeating a Democrat-turned-Republican, William "Bill" Clark. Bill Clinton, however, lost in the Reagan landslide, having been temporarily unseated by the Republican Frank D. White. In 1986, Bumpers defeated later U.S. Representative Asa Hutchinson, the Republican nominee. In 1992, he defeated future Governor Mike Huckabee. In 1998, when Bumpers retired, the Democratic choice, Blanche Lambert Lincoln easily defeated the Republican Fay Boozman, a state senator who was later the Arkansas Department of Health director under Governor Huckabee.