University of Virginia Library

Satterfield, Robinson Win;
Voters Endorse Constitution

Harry F. Byrd

Re-elected To United States Senate

The likelihood of upset seemed
remote last night as Senator Harry Flood
Byrd Jr. running as an independent
captured 54 per cent of the votes with
1,341 of the Commonwealth's 2,029
precincts reporting.

With 66 per cent of the vote in, liberal
Democrat George Rawlings was a far
second with 238,428 votes for 31 per
cent and Republican Ray Garland trailed
with 114,034 votes for 15 per cent.

At 10 p.m. Mr. Rawlings' aides said he
would concede the election later in the
evening.

Mr. Garland, bitter because President
Richard Nixon did not support him,
conceded in Roanoke two hours after the
polls closed that he could not win.

Murat Williams

Democrat Fails In Congressional Bid

Mr. Garland said he felt the reason he
did not receive the endorsement was
"that the White House felt Harry Byrd was
certain to win. . .and a Byrd in the hand is
worth two in the bush."

Byrd's Gamble

Senator Byrd's bolt from the Democratic
Party represented a daring gamble to win
reelection as an independent. The Senator's
reelection will make him the second man ever
to be elected to the United States Senate as an
independent.

The incumbent senator, a wealthy apple
orchardist and newspaper publisher, put his seat
on the line earlier this year when he refused to
sign the Democratic Party Loyalty Oath.

He gambled that the famous Byrd name in
Virginia politics plus his record on "forward
looking conservatism" which sided more often
than not with the Nixon administration, would
earn him election to his first full term in the
Senate.

Senator Byrd was appointed to the seat in
1965 by then-Governor Mills E. Godwin upon
the death of his father, the late Senator Harry
F. Byrd Sr., who founded and controlled the
Byrd political machine in Virginia for decades.

In 1966 Senator Byrd won a special election
to finish out his father's term.

Incumbents Win

In the Congressional races, most of
Virginia's incumbent Congressmen were well
ahead with approximately half the returns in at
10 p.m.

With this election, Virginia has become the
first southern state since reconstruction to send
a Republican dominated delegation to
Congress.

Republican State Senator J. Kenneth
Robinson's win over Democrat Murat Williams
in the seventh district — where Democrat John
O. Marsh Jr. did not seek reelection — gave the
GOP a six-four edge over the Democrats.

At 10 p.m. Mr. Robinson held 36,724 votes
for 62 per cent and Mr. Williams trailed with
23,027 votes for 38 per cent.

The Congressional elections of 1968 had

given the two parties an even five-five split.

Elsewhere in the state, first district
Representative Thomas Downing (D.) won
reelection unopposed.

Republicans G. William Whitehurst in the
second, Richard Poff in the sixth, William
Wampler in the ninth, and Joel Broyhill in the
tenth were returned to office.

Mr. Whitehurst's 62 per cent beat Joseph
Fitzpatrick as did Mr. Poff's 75 per cent over
Roy White. Mr. Scott's win over Darrel Stearns
will be by 65 per cent to 35 per cent.

Mr. Wampler's 62 per cent of the vote
defeated Tate Buchanan. Likewise, Mr. Broyhill
dominated over Harold Miller with 55 per cent
of the vote.

Also reelected were Democrats David
Satterfield in the third, Watkins Abbitt in the
fourth, and W. C. Daniels in the fifth.

Mr. Satterfield overcame Jay Wilkinson III, a
student at the University, with about 68 per
cent of the vote. Mr. Abbitt won with 62 per
cent over Republican James Helms and
independent Ben Ragsdale. Mr. Daniels beat
Allen St. Clair with 73 per cent of the vote.

Governor Linwood Holton's hard-sell
campaign for a new Virginia constitution paid
off at the polls yesterday as all four parts of the
package swept to approval by wide margins.

Supporters of the new constitution feared
voters might be sidetracked because of the
possibly confusing language of the provisions.

With about half of the state's 2,029
precincts reporting, each of the four proposals
had been clearing either than a two-for-one
margin.