The 1966 United States Senate special election in Virginia was held on November 8, 1966, alongside the other U.S. Senate election in Virginia. Incumbent Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr. had retired the previous year for health reasons, and his son Harry F. Byrd Jr. had been appointed to replace him. The younger Byrd defeated Republican Lawrence M. Traylor and Conservative Party of Virginia candidate John W. Carter, and was able to finish the balance of his father's sixth term.
Due to Byrd switching parties in 1970, this was the last time until 1988 that a Democrat was elected to this seat.
The primary was held on the same day as another primary for Virginia's other Senate seat. Both Byrd and longtime Senator A. Willis Robertson were opposed by more liberal "antiorganization" challengers, and although all four candidates ran separate campaigns the elections took on familiar organization versus antiorganization characteristics.
Unlike Robertson, Byrd held his Democratic candidacy against longtime "Young Turk" Boothe, who had had a substantial career in the state legislature opposing "Massive Resistance" and after failing to reform the organization, would firmly split form it by 1963, although he had had conflicts with it as early as 1950 when he proposed bills ending segregation on public transportation. Boothe campaigned by attacking Byrd's philosophy and his record on massive resistance, whilst Byrd largely ignored Boothe and presented himself as a defender of states' and individual rights.
The fact that many Byrd Organization members are known to have supported Robertson's opponent William B. Spong Jr., and that Boothe failed to avoid the "anti-organization" label as Spong could, alongside the power of Byrd's name, may account for Boothe's narrow failure to emulate Spong by defeating a conservative Senate incumbent.
Thinking Byrd less vulnerable than the winner of the SpongâÂÂRobertson primary, the Republican Party nominated little-known Heathsville attorney Lawrence Traylor for the special election. Unlike fellow GOP nominee James P. Ould, Jr., who already held the mayoral office in Lynchburg, Traylor only announced shortly before the deadline.
Byrd was also opposed by John W. Carter of the Virginia Conservative Party, which was formed by hard-line Byrd Democrats who believed that the pay-as-you-go political system must be reinforced and federal control eliminated throughout the state. Support by several leaders of the machine for Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 presidential election â most critically future party-switching two-time Governor Mills Godwin â angered this group and led it away from even the conservative state Democratic Party. Both Conservative Senate candidates devoted their campaigns to attacking the major parties for refusing to debate such issues as the supposed takeover of schools, inflation due to the War on Poverty, and judicial appointments that the Conservatives believed responsible for the crime wave of the 1960s.
Whereas Ould would run a conservative campaign, Traylor ran to the left of Byrd, actively seeking Black and even labor support. Despite his lack of political experience, anti-Byrd sentiment among black voters â about half newly enfranchised since the Twenty-Fourth Amendment â would ensure Traylor ran several percent ahead of Ould. Some observers thought that if the GOP had run Ould or another more prominent Republican against Byrd, they could have captured his seat.