Joel Broyhill loses race for Congress from northern Virginia, 1952

In 1952, reapportionment for the first time gave the rapidly growing DC suburbs in VA their own congressional district--VA-10 (then consisting of Arlington and Fairfax counties and of the cities of Alexandria and Falls Church). Joel Broyhill (R) narrowly defeated Edmund D. Campbell (D) 50.2-49.8 https://en.wikipedia.org/…/1952_United_States_House_of_Repr… and proceeded to give Northern Virginia twenty-two years of conservative Republican representation. He was a perennial target of the Democrats and almost never won overwhelmingly--but he did win until Joseph L. Fisher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_L._Fisher defeated him in 1974. Suppose Campbell had won in 1952? The records of Broyhill and Campbell are in stark contrast on racial matters--Broyhill was one of two Republicans (the other being his fellow Virginian Richard Poff) to sign the Southern Manifesto against Brown v. Board of Education, while Campbell was a staunch integrationist and opponent of the Byrd machine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_D._Campbell Could Campbell have kept winning re-election the way Broyhill did, assuming he was as good at constituent services as Broyhill famously was? [1] Or would the racial issue become too much for him (after all, one reason for the growth of northern Virgnia was white Washingtonians seeking to escape the integration of the DC schools after 1954...)?

[1] Constituent services were a more important part of a Representative's job in those days than they are today, and could actually help a member of Congress to win re-election in an ideologically uncongenial district. Such services mattered especially in VA-10 with all its federal employees
 
Last edited:
Top