Remember When?

Nov. 11-15, 1966 U.S. Senator John Tower won reelection – the first time Texas ever chose a GOP senator in a general election – in a close, bitterly contested battle with Democrat Waggoner Carr. The statewide tabulations showed Tower with 981,937 votes and Carr 633,622. In Fayette County, Carr was the leader with a bare 77-vote margin. Carr polled 1,603 and Tower 1,526. A total of 3,377 votes were polled in Fayette County with 1,001 voting in the La Grange precinct. Tower first won office in 1961 in a special poll to succeed Lyndon B. Johnson, who had been named vice president in the general election. Although Tower was the first Republican U.S. senator ever elected from Texas, the legislature had appointed some to that office in Reconstruction days. Democrats were elected or reelected to all other statewide office offices.

 

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