1966 United States Senate election in Massachusetts

1966 United States Senate election in Massachusetts

← 1960 November 8, 1966 1972 →
 
Nominee Edward Brooke Endicott Peabody
Party Republican Democratic
Popular vote 1,213,473 774,761
Percentage 60.68% 38.74%


U.S. senator before election

Leverett Saltonstall
Republican

Elected U.S. Senator

Edward Brooke
Republican

The 1966 United States Senate election in Massachusetts was held on November 8, 1966. Republican incumbent Leverett Saltonstall retired after serving for 22 years. Republican Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke defeated Democratic former Governor of Massachusetts Endicott Peabody in a landslide.

Brooke was the first African-American U.S. Senator elected after the end of Reconstruction and the first ever popularly elected, as Reconstruction ended before the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This election marked the first time since Reconstruction in 1874 that an African-American was elected to the United States Senate and Edward Brooke's inauguration was the first time since 1881 that an African-American United States senator held a United States Senate seat.


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