The Biggest Loser: Elections Edition

14 min readJun 17, 2021

To run a race and lose is demoralizing for most normal people. Some men grow a sad beard, other candidates go off the grid in the woods. Candidates are human and so while a lot try again, it really does hurt and people usually can’t take anymore. This blog post is not about them. This is about the truly committed, those who have lost at least 15 campaigns for office. It is a true peanut’s gallery of characters, usually committed to fringe causes and minor parties.

The source for this is a database comprised at PoliticalGraveyard.com (https://politicalgraveyard.com/special/lostmost.html) run by Lawrence Kestenbaum, the Washtenaw County clerk, whose Twitter is found here: https://twitter.com/kestenbaum?lang=en. This list seems to mostly include statewide offices, federal offices, or state legislature and did not count any offices lower than that, so there could certainly be people who have run just as much and are little noticed. Another note is that I did not include any losing campaigns for internal party chairmanships or positions as a loss, though the website does. This website is an amazing free resource that has a lot more, from deaths to portraits and is a true testament to Kestenbaum to keep this going and make this free, thank you.

Below is a summary table of everyone who made the list based on these criteria and the total number of races lost and the average per year:

And here is a Tableau dashboard of each one by year. While below will talk about snippets for a select number of candidates, the interactive visual linked here shows the specific office that they ran for and for which party with filters for everything:

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/noah7751/viz/BiggestElectoralLoser/LosingRaces-Specific_1

Now here are the stories of some of the biggest electoral failures ever, starting with the undisputed champion.

The Biggest Loser Champion: Jasper McLevy

Jasper McLevy is the all-time GOAT, the Michael Jordan of losing. With a total of 38 election losses, detailed below, shows every single failed attempt at a run for office. The stamina here is incredible, tied for first on the list with 59 years between losing runs. McLevy may have the number of runs of two people on this list combined but he also has something else that most others didn’t and most normal candidates will never get: A win.

Jasper McLevy was born and raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the later home to legendary entertainer P.T. Barnum who would later run and become mayor of the town, focusing on civil rights and cracking down on alcohol. But before that, Barnum allegedly grabbed a young McLevy by the seta of his pants and gave McLevy a lecture about honesty when he was caught trying to sneak into the circus. When Jasper was 14, his father died while roofing and he left school, becoming an apprentice roofer with his uncle and later starting his own company. McLevy gravitated to socialism believing that it was “the only hope of the people” and at age 22 began to run for office. This was two years after he had attended every Common Council meeting and became a perennial candidate for office, running and losing 20 more times in the next 30 years.

11 of those races had been for the mayor of Bridgeport, and he decided to give it a go for a 12th time in 1933, right as the Great Depression was spreading everywhere in the nation. He campaigned on a soapbox on street corners and would drive around in his roofing truck. But this time around, he began to draw crowds not as a local oddity, but as a man who railed against the corruption of the spoils system that both Democrats and Republicans took part in. As manufacturing demand plummeted, the food lines grew and labor strikes became a common occurrence. The state of Connecticut has taken over the budget and tax collection after the city had failed to pay state taxes for over a decade and the mayoral office had ping-ponged between the parties every few years. Hoping to galvanize the town, the current Democratic mayor has dumped over a quarter of a million dollars ($5 million in today’s money) and the mayor laid off employees while he drove around in an expensive car.

Sure enough, the people had had enough and elected McLevy to mayor where he quickly set about making his vision reality. He got rid of the city limo and began to centralize city purchase, such as buying coal directly from the mine. He also banned city contracts for public employees — a new innovation in the nation, and a target at the corrupt trash collection operation. This boosted his popularity and he was re-elected as mayor over and over and over and over…all the way until he lost in the 1957 mayoral election, which is the next mayoral loss noted in the table. During that time period, he would also run for governor 11 more times and the Senate twice, with no electoral penalty for constantly seeking higher office.

McLevy’s tenure as mayor was complicated, with a few bumps at first. In 1934, news broke that he was actually secretly married and had been since 1929. A few terms in as mayor, he recognized that the real power in Bridgeport resided with the businessmen and the fiscal conservatives of the era. He never raised property taxes and slowly began to abandon socialist dogma. In 1937 we slashed wages for public employees and wouldn’t raise them again for a decade. He began to break up strikes and balance the budget with strict discipline. After a particularly bad 20-inch snowstorm at the end of 1947 that went into the next year, residents couldn’t use the streets and McLevy would not send out the snowplows because their share of the budget had been cut. He was allegedly quoted as saying, “God put the snow there, let him take it away.” In 1936, he joined the “Old Guard” of the socialists arguing for practicality and pragmatism and would fight with the national committee of the party for over a decade, even withdrawing the Connecticut state party out of the organization in 1938 and 1950, railing against “The New York crowd.” In 1955, McLevy fell under 50% in the mayoral race for the first time in 22 years and the next year lost to young Democratic attorney Samuel Tedesco. McLevy would die 5 years later, holding the record for the longest mayoral term to this day and a complicated legacy. If you would like to read a long 1951 master’s thesis on McLevy written while he was still in office, you can check it out from James Blawie here: https://open.bu.edu/ds2/stream/?#/documents/76348/page/4.

Splitting of the Guard: The New York Socialists

Five of the people on this list were people who ran as socialists over and over in New York, and all at about the same time. S. John Block ran for governor and judge consistently but the rest focused on the legislature. Many of these either won or came very close to winning state legislature seats but New York Socialists were rocked in the aftermath of WWI. The Socialist Party was against joining WWI, a decision that would later end some congressional representatives early: https://medium.com/@rudnicknoah/the-fate-of-the-fifty-46715d6ccfc2.

WWI coincided with the first federal crackdown of communists and in New York in April 1920, the Republican speaker of the state house ejected five socialist members from the state legislature and put them on trial, August Claessens among them. All five were re-elected in the special elections but three were expelled again and the other two resigned in solidarity. Socialists quickly fell out of power and while there were more rounds under the party label, they would not get close to winning. In the 1930s, these Old Guard candidates would follow Jasper McLevy’s cue and break from the party, first running as the American Labor party for leftists who liked FDR but not the Democratic party. Ten years later, a few would join the Liberal Party of New York after the ALP split because of alleged communist ties.

Enough Losses for an Army: Jacob Sechler Coxey

Jacob Sechler Coxey was a wealthy businessman who owned a sand quarry that hit hard financial times during the Panic of 1893. Dissatisfied with any government aid for businesses and unemployed workers, he organized a march from Massillon, Ohio to Washington, DC, which was a hike of over 300 miles. The march would attract men at each point and Coxey claims that at one point there were over 100,000 men. However, by the time they arrived there were only about 500 and they called themselves “Coxey’s Army.” The demanded public works jobs by having the federal government by municipal bonds, a new populist idea at the time that is widely used today. When they arrived, they marched on the grass of federal buildings and Coxey was arrested for trespassing.

Coxey decided to enter politics and ran first for the Greenback Party before joining the fusion People’s Party. In the meantime, he remarried, and named one of his new sons “Legal Tender.” He then floated between parties as an Independent, being elected mayor once as a Republican, and then a Democrat when FDR took office. He would later settle on the Farmer-Labor party for his last 4 runs for mayor and the US House. His claim to fame on this list is losing three times in the same year of 1932, for mayor, senate, and president.

Founding Father: Frank Francis Fasi

Frank Fasi may not have the most impressive losing record against some of these other guys — he eked in with 16 losses but also has the lowest losses per year, mostly because he had a lot of wins in between. Fasi was a WW2 veteran who returned to Hawaii where he stayed briefly during the war, and quickly built up a contracting and development company. Fasi is unique on this list because he started running — and losing — campaigns before Hawaii even became a state, notching 4 losses early. A staunch Democrat, he did finally win Territorial Senator in 1958 but he would not be elected again until 1965 as a Honolulu city councilman. In 1968, he became the mayor of Honolulu and then reclaimed the mantle as a Republican in 1984 and those periods of 3 wins each time are the prolonged gap in his losing races timeline.

While mayor he was known as a maverick and focused heavily on improving public infrastructure and transportation but was caught up in a corruption scandal that led to a primary loss for mayor in 1980. After that, he switched his registration to Independent for a gubernatorial run and lost that before becoming a Republican. He would then win as a Republican before making another run for governor. When both parties wanted younger candidates, he created his own party, Best Party, to run for governor but lost for that as well. After that, he would run for several more offices under several party banners, losing each time. The Best Party then morphed into the Aloha ʻĀina Party, which advocates for Native Hawaiian rights. This new party finally got on the ballot in 2020 and while it did not win any races, it did garner about 20% in two state leg districts and is likely to be a formidable minor party going forward in what is essentially a one-party state legislature.

America First, But Never the Candidate: Lawrence Joseph Sarsfield Daly

Lawrence Daly made wooden stools for a living but his true passion was running for office. A staunch isolationist who liked to call himself by the moniker Lar “America First” Daly, he was a consummate retail politician. Known for attending lots of events, he even gave himself the name “Lar” in a losing 1938 run for County School Superintendent because he believed it would appeal to the Swedish community. He then began to run over and over for whichever of the major parties would have him, including running in both the Democratic AND Republican primaries for Chicago mayor in 1959.

Daly is best known for two political shenanigans, the first of which was signing up General Douglas MacArthur to challenge Eisenhower in the 1952 Republican primary in the Illinois presidential primary. MacArthur caught wind of this and asked for his name to be removed. Daly, scrambling, found a 42-year-old African American father of 8 literally named General MacArthur out of a phone book who agreed to be put on the ballot. Their meeting is shown in the photograph below that Daly staged with “Life” magazine.

Daly and General MacArthur (the not famous one)

The other incident took place in 1960 when Daly decided to run for president under the Tax Cut party. Under the now repealed Equal Time provision from the FCC, Daly was allowed the same amount of broadcast time as the major party candidates if he so wished. When JFK went onto the popular The Tonight Show with Jack Paar, Daly successfully sued to be able to appear for the same amount of time. Daly, known for occasionally dressing up as Uncle Sam, took the stage to boos as he turned towards the crowd and said “Your only choice is America first — or death.” Parr then sarcastically teed up a commercial from the Daly campaign. In later years, Daly would struggle financially and though he kept running, the rumor is that he had to pawn the suit.

Daly in full coat and tails for his Late Night appearance

Dry Spell: The Prohibitionists

Michigan had been ground zero for the pivot after the repeal of Prohibition when the national party changed hands from being controlled by the Northeast to the Midwest and he ran for the party up and down the ballot, finally settling in on being focused on mayoral and gubernatorial races in the 1950s. Meanwhile, theocratic demagogue Roger Babson had quickly ascended and descended from power but it had changed the identity of the party to be more conservative and focused on the rural areas that it had long overperformed in. Earl Munn, associate dean at the religious Hillsdale college, was placed as VP on the 1960 ticket with the president of the Colorado Baptist Convention at its head. Munn was also a shareholder in several radio and tv stations and the ticket fought for anti-trust regulations and a return to the gold standard. Another main sticking point was opposing federal funds in education, modeled after religious schools like Hillsdale that did not want federal secular guidelines. Munn would then be the presidential nominee in the next three cycles, where he had to fend off challenges from people trying to bring the party even more to the right, such as putting Goldwater instead of Munn on the ticket in 1964. Near the end of the run, as the party began to wane in earnest, the national party gave more power to a young man named Earl F Dodge, who ran under the party banner in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Dodge was close to the incumbent mayor and served on several town boards and while he pulled in one of the highest vote shares in a long time, he lost, making it the first in a long line and the beginning of putting him on this list. It was also the beginning of a power struggle for the Prohibition Party itself.

James Hedges, the Prohibition Party chairman and 2016 presidential nominee, refers to Dodge on the official website as “The Architect of Oblivion” and his book A Faithful Remnant does not mince words either. After attending a 1952 rally, Dodge committed himself to the temperance movement and began working in the national office in 1957. The timeline above shows a few losing campaigns for that time in lower office in states around the nation: 1954 and 1956 in Massachusetts, 1960 in Indiana, 1966 in Kansas. In 1968, he had become Executive Secretary for the national party and settled into Colorado, making a run for Colorado. Dodge kept the newsletter going and Hedges does say that he kept ballot access alive for the party through struggling times but had a habit of taking over each state party wherever he ran. Dodge was the Vice President on the ticket in 1976 and 1980 but had fully become in control of the central committee in 1979. He then began to run for president every cycle, alternating with runs for governor or senator in the off years. He would go on to do this up until 2004 when finally, another group wrested control in a dramatic showdown. Allegations against Dodge include misuse of funds in order to purchase his beloved historical pins and memorabilia and letting rent lapse. Lawsuits flew back and forth but eventually Dodge was expelled from leadership. These two Prohibitionists saw the party drain over the course of six decades but their constant running for office place both on this list, the only two from the Prohibition Party on here.

Proud Upholders of The Toledo War Legacy: The Michiganders

Michigan is a state full of losers — especially if you’ve been watching their college football team lately (Go Bucks!). So it came to no surprise to me that a suspiciously high number of the list have run mostly in or started out in Michigan, a whopping 6 out of the Top 19 (32%)! You’ll notice Munn on here but the rest are not described elsewhere because I couldn’t find anything about them. The most active period seemed to be socialists from the 40s through the 60s but include one Democrat, William J Kelly, who mainly ran for the US House.

Honorable Mention: Family Man Roque De La Fuente

Wealthy businessman Roque De La Fuente was left off of this list because so far, he only has 13 election losses. This is extremely impressive though considering his first race was only in 2016, making a record-breaking 2.6 election losses a year and over 5 a cycle. He’s accomplished this by running for president twice, as well as 9 different state primaries in 2018 alone. 2020 he also ran with his son in California’s 21st, intending to make a statement about ballot access laws after being thrown off of a few ballot lines. Roque is only 67 so I believe he has plenty of time to break into this pack and he has also gotten his son to run in several districts. His son, Ricardo De La Fuente already has three losses notched under his belt and one surprising primary win in a Texas district. This is the future and I hope they stick around for a long time, possibly even beating McLevy’s record.

Sources:

https://politicalgraveyard.com/special/lostmost.html

https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/bridgeport-elects-a-socialist-mayor-again-and-again-and-again/

https://www.ctexplored.org/bridgeport-votes-for-a-change/

https://www.nytimes.com/1936/01/10/archives/socialist-mayor-assails-thomas-jasper-mclevy-of-bridgeport-lines-up.html

https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ZdUyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=yQAGAAAAIBAJ&pg=6446,5277663

https://open.bu.edu/ds2/stream/?#/documents/76348/page/3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Fasi

http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20100206_one_of_a_kind.html

http://www.fittedhawaii.com/hanahou/tag/frank-fasi/

https://www.polynesia.com/blog/shaka/frank-fasi-courtesy-of-the-honolulu-star-bulletin

Partisan Prophets: A History of the Prohibition Party by Rover C Storms