1938 United States Senate election in Kentucky

The 1938 United States Senate election in Kentucky took place on November 8, 1938. Democratic Senator and Senate Majority Leader Alben Barkley was re-elected to a third term in office over Republican John P. Haswell. The true challenge to Barkley came in the Democratic primary, where he faced Governor Happy Chandler.

Candidates

 * Alben W. Barkley, Senate Majority Leader and incumbent Senator since 1927
 * Happy Chandler, Governor of Kentucky since 1935

Background
Barkley faced a primary challenge in his 1938 re-election bid from A. B. "Happy" Chandler, Kentucky's popular governor who had a strong political organization throughout the state. According to historian James C. Klotter, Chandler was confident of his ascension to the presidency and saw the Senate as a stepping stone. Chandler twice asked Roosevelt to appoint Kentucky's junior Senator, M. M. Logan, to a federal judgeship so he could arrange his own appointment to Logan's Senate seat. The retirement of Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland in January 1938 gave President Franklin Roosevelt the opportunity to accommodate Chandler's wishes, but Roosevelt preferred a younger option, and Barkley recommended Solicitor General Stanley Forman Reed for the appointment. Chandler's mentor, Virginia senator Harry F. Byrd, and the bloc of Democrats who opposed Roosevelt's New Deal then encouraged Chandler to announce his candidacy for Barkley's seat.

Eager to augment his power and angered by the refusal of Roosevelt and Barkley to accept his suggestion of appointing Logan to the Supreme Court, Chandler did not attend a long-planned dinner in Barkley's honor on January 22, 1938. Instead, he held an event of his own at Louisville's exclusive Pendennis Club and alluded to a challenge to Barkley in the upcoming primary. Barkley officially announced his re-election bid on January 23, the following day. The death of another federal judge on January 26 provided a second opportunity for Roosevelt to appoint Senator Logan to a judgeship and appease Chandler, but Logan refused to consider the appointment. Following a January 31 meeting in Washington, D.C. between Roosevelt and Chandler, in which Roosevelt urged Chandler to put his senatorial ambitions on hold, Byrd encouraged Chandler to challenge Barkley. Chandler heeded Byrd's advice by making an official announcement of his candidacy on February 23 in Newport, Kentucky.

Campaign
The New York Times framed the primary, one of several within the majority Democratic Party that year, as "the Gettysburg of the party's internecine strife" over control of the Democratic National Convention in 1940. Early on, Chandler portrayed himself as a supporter of Roosevelt – since Roosevelt was popular in Kentucky – but opposed to the New Deal. He pointed to his fiscal conservatism as governor, including reorganizing and downsizing the executive branch and reducing the state's debt. In April, polls showed Barkley ahead of Chandler by a 2-to-1 margin, and the May 3 primary victory of Florida Senator Claude Pepper, who supported the New Deal, finally persuaded Chandler to abandon his attacks of the program. He criticized Barkley as "a stranger to the state" and obliquely referred to "fat, sleek senators who go to Europe and have forgotten the people of Kentucky except when they run for election". Forty years old – 20 years Barkley's junior – he referred to Barkley as "Old Alben".

Early in the contest, Barkley could only campaign on weekends, and he enlisted allies like Fred Vinson to speak on his behalf. Chandler's enemies, such as former governor Ruby Laffoon and John Y. Brown, also supported Barkley. Although labor leaders had backed Chandler's gubernatorial bid, they endorsed Barkley because of Roosevelt's support for labor unions.

As nearly every 20th-century Kentucky governor had done, Chandler printed campaign materials with state funds, solicited campaign funds from state employees, and promised new government jobs in exchange for votes. A later investigation determined that Chandler had raised at least $10,000 from state employees. Federal New Deal employees countered by working on Barkley's behalf. Barkley and George H. Goodman, director of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in Kentucky, denied that WPA employees played a role in the campaign, but journalist Thomas Lunsford Stokes concluded that "the WPA ... was deep in politics" in Kentucky, winning the 1939 Pulitzer Prize for Reporting for his investigation. A Senate committee investigated Stokes' findings, and WPA administrator Harry Hopkins claimed the committee's report refuted all but two of Stokes' twenty-two charges. Nevertheless, Congress passed the Hatch Act of 1939 which restricted federal employees' participation in political activities.

In late May 1938, Chandler's campaign manager publicly claimed that federal relief agencies, especially the Works Progress Administration, were openly working for Barkley's re-election. Although the WPA administrator in Kentucky denied the charges, veteran reporter Thomas Lunsford Stokes launched an investigation of the agency's activities in the state and eventually raised 22 charges of political corruption in a series of eight articles, covering the Barkley-Chandler campaign. Federal WPA administrator Harry Hopkins claimed an internal investigation of the agency refuted all but two of Stokes' charges, but Stokes was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Reporting in 1939 for his investigation. In the wake of the investigation Congress passed the Hatch Act of 1939 to limit the WPA's involvement in future elections.

The negative effects of the investigation on Barkley's campaign were minimal because of Chandler's own use of his gubernatorial power and patronage on behalf of his own campaign. Dan Talbott, one of Chandler's chief political advisors, encouraged supervisors of state workers to take punitive action against employees who made "pessimistic expressions" on Chandler's chances in the primary. Furthermore, Chandler initiated a rural road-building project in the state, employing loyal supporters to construct and maintain the new roads. State workers who supported Chandler were employed to deliver pension checks to the state's elderly citizens, and Talbott did not deny charges that the workers threatened to withhold the checks if the recipients did not pledge their support to Chandler.

Recognizing that the defeat of his hand-picked floor leader would be a repudiation of his agenda, Roosevelt began a tour of the state in Covington on July 8. As governor of the state, Chandler was on hand to greet Roosevelt on his arrival in Covington and sat between Roosevelt and Barkley in the back seat of the open-topped vehicle that transported them to Latonia Race Track, the site of Roosevelt's first speech. Throughout his tour of the state, Roosevelt endorsed Barkley but remained friendly with Chandler. Although clearly campaigning for Barkley, Roosevelt made courteous remarks about Chandler in the spirit of party unity, but in Bowling Green, he chastised Chandler for "dragging federal judgeships into a political campaign". After Roosevelt's departure, Chandler played up Roosevelt's complimentary remarks about him but downplayed or ignored critical remarks.

After the congressional session ended, Barkley made between 8 and 15 speeches each day and traveling, on average, 4500 mi per week. This countered Chandler's criticisms of Barkley's age, a charge that was further blunted when the younger Chandler fell ill in July, temporarily halting his campaigning. Chandler described his malady as "intestinal poisoning". His doctor announced that Chandler, Dan Talbott, and a state police officer had all been sickened after drinking "poisoned water" that had been provided to Chandler for a radio address. Chandler insinuated that someone from the Barkley campaign had tried to poison him, but the charge never gained much credence with the press or the electorate. Barkley frequently mocked it on the campaign trail by first accepting a glass of water offered to him and then shuddering and rejecting it.

Results
Barkley won the August 6 election by a vote of 294,391 to 223,149, carrying 74 of Kentucky's 120 counties, with large majorities in western Kentucky, the city of Louisville, and rural areas. It was the first loss of Chandler's political career, and the worst suffered by a primary candidate in Kentucky's history to that time.

Aftermath
Encouraged by Barkley's success, Roosevelt campaigned against conservative Democratic incumbents in southern states, but all of these candidates won, which damaged Roosevelt's image.

When Senator Logan died on October 9, 1939, Chandler resigned as Governor so that Lieutenant Governor Keen Johnson could appoint him to the vacant seat. He won the special election to complete the term and a regular election to a full term in 1942, each time winning competitive Democratic primary races. At the 1944 Democratic National Convention, he unsuccessfully angled to have himself nominated as Roosevelt's running mate. His bid collapsed when the Kentucky delegation chose to support Barkley over him.

Barkley served out his term and was re-elected in 1944. When Harry S. Truman, who had defeated Chandler for the vice presidential nomination, succeeded to the presidency, he selected Barkley as his own running mate for the 1948 presidential election. The Truman-Barkley ticket won despite opposition from Chandler and some other Southern Democrats.

Candidates

 * Alben W. Barkley, Senate Majority Leader and incumbent Senator since 1927 (Democratic)
 * John P. Haswell, Louisville judge (Republican)

Results
Barkley defeated his Republican opponent, Louisville Judge John P. Haswell, securing 62% of the general election vote.