The first year of the Hoover Presidency had been quite a successful one. Leonidas C. Dyer, one of the original defectors to the Progressive party, re-introduced his 1918 Anti-Lynching bill to Congress. It passed the House quite easily, and though Southern Democrats in the Senate attempted to filibuster the bill once more, a powerful block of Pro-Civil Rights Republicans and Progressives, joined by the 2 Socialist Senators and singular Prohibition Senator, opted to push back against these Southern Democrats. After a several days long filibuster, the bill was passed in July of 1921. This, along with the successful intervention in Armenia, and recovering economy, gave hope for the fledgling Progressive Party.
As Progressives picked up successes over the course of the year, Republicans and Democrats slowly crumbled. Democratic Kentucky Senator Augustus O. Stanley would defect to the Progressive Party, while his fellow Senator J.C.W. Beckham would defect to the Prohibition Party, over one of their many disputes over Prohibition. In July, muckraker Paul Anderson would publish a report that New Mexico Senator Albert Fall had accepted bribes from several oil companies to pass legislation that would enable them to monopolize the production of oil for the United States government. This was widely published among several newspapers, and pressure mounted for Fall to resign. In late August, with the Republican machine of New Mexico turning against him, Fall resigned from his seat. Governor Larrazolo appointed Progressive suffragist Adelina Otero-Warren to the seat, and scheduled the special election for the seventh of October. Notable was the presence of a Fusion ticket, between the Democratic, Prohibition, and Socialist tickets. However, the Fusion ticket wouldn't come close, and Warren became the first Latina elected to the Senate.
In Virginia, a woman would triumph as well, but under much different circumstances. With Governor Westmoreland Davis refusing to seek re-election, multiple candidates stepped up to try and fill in the gap. A surprising addition to the race was former First Lady Edith Wilson, who shockingly ran for the Prohibition nomination, winning it easily. Wilson would win the race by nearly 20,000 votes, both due to vote-splitting between other candidates and lackluster efforts by Democrats. Also helping her was campaign appearances by her husband, which hurt his ever-fragile health even more.
Over by the Black Sea, the Mandate of Armenia was scheduled to elect its first Governor. Armenia was practically a one-party state prior to the establishment of the mandate, with the Armenian Revolutionary Federation having a super majority in the legislature, but after the end of the war with Turkey, problems started to set in. Refugees began flowing into the new territory, and the U.S. congress debated over further aid expenditures to the area. As a humanitarian crisis loomed, opposition to the ARF began growing, but they couldn't agree on a suitable candidate to run against the ARF nominee. Eventually they settled upon the respected general Christophor Araratov, who ran on a platform of bringing stability to the region. He would win the election, and several opposition parties picked up seats against the ARF.
