1932 United States Senate election in Oklahoma
The 1932 United States Senate election in Oklahoma took place on November 8, 1932. Incumbent Democratic Senator Elmer Thomas ran for re-election to a second term. Thomas faced a crowded path to renomination, and only won the Democratic primary following a runoff election with attorney Gomer Smith. On the Republican side, oil magnate Wirt Franklin similarly won the Republican nomination in a runoff election. Thomas overwhelmingly defeated Franklin to win re-election, aided by Democratic presidential nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt's landslide win in Oklahoma over Republican President Herbert Hoover.
1932 United States Senate election in Oklahoma
John William Elmer Thomas was a native of Indiana who moved to Oklahoma Territory in 1901, where he practiced law in Lawton. After statehood, he was elected to the first state senate, representing the Lawton area. In 1922, he ran successfully on the Democratic Party ticket for the U.S. House of Representatives from Oklahoma. He was the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in 1926; he won this race and held the seat until 1950, when he lost the party nomination to A.S. (Mike) Monroney. Thomas returned to a private law practice in Washington, D.C., and in 1957 moved his practice back to Lawton, where he died in 1965.
Thomas in 1926
Elmer Thomas (left), with Claude M. Hirst, and John Collier
Elmer Thomas (right-center, facing left, with right hand raised) is sworn into the U.S. Senate by then-Vice President John N. Garner in January 1939 after being re-elected in 1938.