WI Republicans won the Senate in 1970

Pericles

What if Republicans won control of Congress in the 1970s? The House is probably out of reach, but in one year, 1970, the Senate was in play. Based on this thread, Watergate with a Republican Congress.

According to Nixonland, Nixon made a strong push, the most active midterm involvement of a President since 1938, to take Congress and a 'new Republican majority'. Nixon believed that with Democrats defending many seats from the 1958 and 1964 waves. Nixon hoped to ride the 'silent majority' sentiment and anger at the hippies to victory. Nixonland quoted angry letters to the Scranton Commission on the Kent State massacre, with one saying "What these radicals need is a good beating. And I will be the first one to break the backs of one of these little b****es or b******s" However, Perlstein says that Republicans "forgot the power of quiet" and Nixon's campaign was too inflammatory with Agnew being too partisan. Another suggested cause of Nixon's disappointing showing was the economy, which entered recession for the first time in a decade in 1970. Nixon raged against the result, despite Democrats losing 4 Senate seats. Nixonland says that "The Democrats' success showed the brilliance of a Democratic Congress's political menuver. In August, Congress had handed the president new powers to impose wage and price controls-because they knew a business Republican such as Nixon would never use them. Republicans, boxed in, lamely called Democrats economic pessimists. Democrats returned that they have given the president authority to do something about people's economic misery-but instead he sat on his hands."

Here are my alternate 1970 results.
1970 Senate elections
Hugh Scott-Republican: 49+6 43.9%
Mike Mansfield-Democratic: 49-8 48.4%
Independent: 1+1
Conservative: 1+1
100 seats
51 for majority

Florida: William C Cramer(R) defeats Lawton Chiles(D)
Indiana: Richard L Roudebush(R) defeats incumbent Vance Hartke(D)
Missouri: John Danforth(R) defeats incumbent Stuart Symington(D)
New Mexico: Anderson Carter(R) defeats incumbent Joseph Montoya(D)
Texas: George Bush(R) defeats Lloyd Bentsen(D)

1970 House elections
Carl Albert-Democratic: 235-8 49.6%
Gerald Ford-Republican: 200+8 48.9%
435 seats
218 for majority

Connecticut 1: Antonina P Uccello(R) defeats William R Cotter(D)
Connecticut 6: Richard C Kilburn(R) defeats Ella T Grasso(D)
Florida 7: Joe Z Lovingood(R) defeats incumbent James A Haley(D)
Indiana 4: Incumbent E Ross Adair(R) defeats J Edward Roush(D)
Kansas 2: Incumbent Chester L Mizel(R) defeats William R Roy(D)
Kentucky 3: Incumbent William O Cowger(R) defeats Romano L Mazzoli(D)
Maryland 6: George R Hughes Jr(R) defeats Goodloe Byron(D)
Massachusetts 3: John McGlennon(R) defeats Robert Drinan(D)
Missouri 6: Hugh A Sprague(R) defeats incumbent William Raleigh Hull Jr(D)
New Mexico 2: Incumbent Ed Foreman(R) defeats Harold L Runnels(D)
New York 1: Malcolm E Smith Jr(R) defeats incumbent Otis G Pike(D)
New York 16: David D Smith(R) defeats incumbent John M Murphy(D)
New York 27: Incumbent Martin B McKneally(R) defeats John G Dow(D)
New York 35: John F Connor(R) defeats incumbent James M Hanley(D)
North Carolina 4: Jack Hawke(R) defeats incumbent Nick Galifianakis(D)
North Dakota 2: Robert McCarney(R) defeats Arthur A Link(D)
South Dakota 2: Fred D Brady(R) defeats James Abourezk(D)
Utah 1: Richard Richards(R) defeats K Gunn McKay(D)
Washington 4: Incumbent Catherine Dean May(R) defeats Mike McCormack(D)
Wyoming at-large: Harry Roberts(R) defeats Teno Roncalio(D)
 

Prince Daemon Targaryen

As I said before, maybe Nixon teams up with Reagan to push this idea. Reagan's charisma would help tamper Nixon's aggressiveness and help with candidate recruitment. Watergate will probably get butterflied away, but that only means the Agnew Scandal will be even more explosive
 

Pericles

I'm not sure if Watergate would be avoided as Nixon was still pretty paranoid. After his 1972 landslide victory, he 'acted like a defeated man'(Nixonland) as he had not won all 50 states or come first in the historical popular vote and had very few coattails. He would probably still be paranoid as the Democratic House would still resist him somewhat and liberals may dismiss or diminish his victory, and therefore he'd convince himself that he needed to do more and go further to finally beat them. However a Republican Senate would probably help protect him from investigations and impeachment and a Democratic House may be less willing to go after him with his stronger majority. That presumes Republicans keep the Senate in 1972, their bare majority could be undone by the 2 OTL seat losses and potentially more if the Democrats are stronger, however the closest two Democratic wins, in Colorado and Delaware, were decided by a margin of less than 2% so the Republicans can keep their majority.
 

Pericles

Thoughts on a suitable PoD and how 1970 could go differently(I specified the causes of Nixon's defeat but not a PoD to enable him to gain a Senate majority)?
 

Prince Daemon Targaryen

Pericles said:
Thoughts on a suitable PoD and how 1970 could go differently(I specified the causes of Nixon's defeat but not a PoD to enable him to gain a Senate majority)?
Click to expand...
IF you could find some way for him and Reagan to get along better, that would probably work to bring about what I said above.

I think Watergate would be butterflied cause if he won control of the Senate in a midterm (bucking the trend), then Nixon may have been less paranoid about "Winning big"
 
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