Return To Politics
Tydings resumed his legal career after he lost his Senate seat, entering into practice with a Washington law firm that included Giant Food President John Danzansky. After several years out of politics, he began traveling the state in 1975 to gauge his chances for winning a rematch versus Beall, who was coming up for re-election in 1976. On January 10, 1976, Tydings announced his candidacy to retake the seat, which he argued was taken unfairly in 1970 due to an undisclosed $180,000 gift to the Beall campaign.
In the primary, Tydings faced a strong challenge from Congressman Paul Sarbanes, who had entered the race several months earlier. This head start gave Sarbanes a considerable organizational and monetary advantage, and he had already secured influential endorsements. To fend off Sarbanes, Tydings hoped his name recognition and charisma on television would compensate for Sarbanes' other advantages. He also worked to relabel himself as more fiscally conservative than Sarbanes, since both candidates were seen as liberal.
For the primary election, Tydings needed a large margin of victory from precincts in the Washington, D.C. suburbs of Prince George's and Montgomery Counties, where he was most popular. However, despite Tydings winning both counties, Sarbanes performed well in the rest of the state and defeated Tydings by over 100,000 votes, 61% to 39%. Sarbanes had managed to outspend Tydings two-to-one during the campaign. After defeating Tydings, Sarbanes won the general election and served as senator until 2007.
Read more about this topic: Joseph Tydings
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