As a member of the House, Kennedy was from a “safe district” meaning that he was fairly certain of easy re-election as long as he wanted to keep his seat. He was marked early as an up and coming leader, and there was talk of Kennedy becoming Speaker of the House in the next ten or fifteen years. He gave up his “safe seat” and future prospects to run for a seat in the U.S. Senate.
Kennedy ran for the Senate in a difficult year for Democrats, another reason his friends and colleagues warned him to remain in his safe seat in the House. In 1952, General Eisenhower was at the head of the Republican ticket, and many Democrats normally considered a safe bet for re-election were in trouble. In addition, Kennedy was running against one of the most popular, most powerful Senators in the country, Henry Cabot Lodge. In that Republican year, Lodge was considered a shoo-in for re-election.
The predictions came true around the nation. The Democrats lost so many races to the Republicans that the Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress for only the second time since 1928. Popular, powerful Democratic Senators and Representatives went down to defeat. But Kennedy surprised the nation by defeating Senator Lodge in spite of Eisenhower’s presence on the Republican ticket, one of the only Democratic high points on election night.
Immediately, Kennedy became a center of attention. He was a Democrat who had moved up from the House to the Senate in the year of the Eisenhower-led Republican landslide. He had defeated a powerful Senator considered unbeatable in a normal year, but even more so in that year. He was also young and handsome and single. He received a lot of attention in the press for all of these reasons.
Kennedy was re-elected to the Senate in 1958 by a large majority. In 1956, he had run for the Democratic Vice Presidential nomination, but lost. He had finished a respectable second, and gained even more national attention. This made him a major candidate for the 1960 Presidential nomination. He served in the Senate from January 3, 1953 until December 22, 1960 when he resigned following his election as President of the United States. While in the Senate, he served as chairman of the Special Committee on the Senate Reception Room. He also served as a member of the Government Operations Committee, the Labor and Public Welfare Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee and the Joint Economic Committee. In 1955, while recovering from back surgery, Kennedy wrote “Profiles in Courage” about Senators who had shown political courage. His book won the Pulitzer Prize.
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