Lloyd Bentsen also ran simultaneously for the Senate and VP in 1988. So did Joe Lieberman in 2000.

Daniel was re-elected twice, but was defeated by John Connally in 1962.

#32
Tower, 30.9%
Blakely, 18.1%
Jim Wright, 16.2% (Congressman, later Speaker)
Will Wilson, 11.5% (AG, famed for raid on Galveston)
Maury Maverick, 9.9%
Henry B Gonzalez, 9.2% (TX senator, later congressman)
65 others, 4.2%

Supposedly Gonzalez and Maverick did not speak for 20 years after they split the liberal vote.

LBJ had run for both the Senate (Tower was the GOP candidate) and VP, so he was elected for a term ending in January 1967. Once a senator is elected, they serve the remainder of the term. An appointed senator serves until the successor is elected. So the election in 1966 was Tower’s first election to a full term.

Did Tower have to run again in ’62 for the remaining four years? I recall that he beat AG Waggoner Carr, a conservative Dem, in 1966. I got to witness a little of that campaign when I attended a convention in Dallas.

I heard Congressman Ed Foreman (R) speak when I made a 1964 trip to Dallas. He lost that fall, when Lyndon Johnson pulverized Goldwater in the presidential race. Foreman was later also elected to the US House from New Mexico.

I recall that Price Daniel was US senator before he was governor.

No governor would wait 500 days to have a special election for the US House, since people are always anxious to have representation for their district in Congress.

Jim Eastland was appointed to fill Mississippi’s vacancy in the US Senate in 1941 but did not run in the special election later that year. In the 1942 election for the full six-year term, Eastland beat the incumbent who had won the ’41 special election.

I realize it is up to the Mississippi legislature to set the timing of special elections (though Congress can override). The Mississippi legislature has done a particularly bad job of it.

I made a mistake. In years in which there is no general state election or congressional election (2009, 2013, etc.) a senate special election is held within 10+90 days. It is vacancies for the House for which the governor may set a special election at least 60 days from the time of his proclamation. 500 days is at least 60 days.

If the senatorial vacancy occurs in an off year, the election is held no later than the next regular congressional elections. Roger Wicker, e. g., was elected in November 2008 to serve the remaining four years on the Senate term.

BTW: In the 1961 TX U. S. Senate election, who made the runoff against John Tower? Was it Jim Wright?

Why is it important to deny or defer voters their right to elect their senator? That was the reason for the 17th Amendment in the first place.

If as senatorial vacancy occurs in the fallow year (2009, 2013, etc.) what is the rationale for permitting the governor to set the special election up to almost 6 years in the future?

Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans required a runoff primary for Sen. Thad Cochran’s seat.

It was really a confusing situation in the election(s) for Roger Wicker’s old House seat. All of the Democratic losers in the special election dropped out of the regular Democratic primary.

The difference is that the governor fills a Senate vacancy, which he cannot do vis-a-vis the U. S. House. Thus it is more important to go ahead and have a special House election.

When Mississippi had its 1947 U. S. Senate election, special elections were nonpartisan, first-past-the-post events. John Stennis was elected with 26.9%; he would have lost if there had been a runoff, since he was more moderate, and the second- and third-place finishers were both States Rights Democrats.

Soon after that, the state House speaker, a States Righter, had the law changed to require 50%-plus to win a special election.

What is inane is deciding because the general election is 300+ days away to hold off until the general election, but then go ahead and hold a primary election and runoff for the other seat, plus hold a special election for Wicker’s congressional seat.

Mississippi should switch its senate vacancy procedure to that used for congressional vacancies; except the governor should have to act within 10 days, and the special election should be in not less than 60 days, unless there is a general election with 120 days.