1958 United States Senate election in Massachusetts

The United States Senate election of 1958 in Massachusetts was held on November 4, 1958. Democratic incumbent John F. Kennedy was reelected to a second six-year term, defeating Republican candidate Vincent J. Celeste.

1958 United States Senate election in Massachusetts
November 4, 1958
 
Nominee John F. Kennedy Vincent Celeste
Party Democratic Republican
Popular vote 1,362,926 488,318
Percentage 73.20% 26.23%
Municipal results
U.S. senator before election

John F. Kennedy
Democratic

 Elected U.S. Senator

John F. Kennedy
Democratic

Democratic primary

Declared

Results

Senator Kennedy was unopposed for renomination.

Republican primary

Declared
  • Vincent J. Celeste, East Boston attorney and candidate for U.S. Representative in 1950 and 1952

Results

Celeste was unopposed for the Republican nomination.

Independents and third parties

Socialist Labor
  • Lawrence Gilfedder, perennial candidate

Prohibition

General election

Campaign

Kennedy was overwhelmingly popular in Massachusetts and the 1958 elections were a wave election favoring the Democratic Party. Celeste's campaign was poorly funded but the candidate worked 17-hour days, running his campaign out of his law offices and attempting to frame the race as one pitting a working-class child of Sicilian immigrants against "that millionaire Jack Kennedy."[1]

The Kennedy campaign had bought and produced thousands of pieces of campaign material with the slogan "Be Proud of Your Vote!" but scrapped them after Celeste's nomination, as Senator Kennedy's father Joe thought the slogan could alienate Italian-Americans and divide the state on ethnic lines.[1]

Results

Kennedy defeated Celeste by a margin of 874,608 votes; this represented the largest margin of victory in a statewide Massachusetts election up to that point.[2]

United States Senate election in Massachusetts, 1958 [3]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Democratic John F. Kennedy (incumbent) 1,362,926 73.20% 21.86
Republican Vincent J. Celeste 488,318 26.23% 22.12
Socialist Labor Lawrence Gilfedder 5,457 0.29% 0.09
Prohibition Mark R. Shaw 5,335 0.29% 0.18
Total votes 1,862,036 100.00%
Democratic hold

References
  1. The Boston Globe. 17 Feb 2015 https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/02/17/vincent-celeste-jfk-senate-opponent-dies/uChX42VI0vXZzmNAreheRL/story.html. Retrieved 13 Dec 2020. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. "John F. Kennedy". Retrieved January 16, 2017.
  3. http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=94556
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