page_title: 1946 California's 12th congressional district election
section_title: Primary campaign
hierarchical_section_title: 1946 California's 12th congressional district election / Primary campaign
caption_attribution_description: English: Flyer/handout for Nixon for House campaign, 1946. Both sides examined, no copyright notice.
context_page_description: An election for a seat in the United States House of Representatives took place in California's 12th congressional district on November 5, 1946, the date set by law for the elections for the 80th United States Congress. In the 12th district election, the candidates were five-term incumbent Democrat Jerry Voorhis, Republican challenger Richard Nixon, and former congressman and Prohibition Party candidate John Hoeppel. Nixon was elected with 56% of the vote, starting him on the road that would, almost a quarter century later, lead to the presidency.
  First elected to Congress in 1936, Voorhis had defeated lackluster Republican opposition four times in the then-rural Los Angeles County district to win re-election. For the 1946 election, Republicans sought a candidate who could unite the party and run a strong race against Voorhis in the Republican-leaning district. After failing to secure the candidacy of General George Patton, in November 1945 they settled on Lieutenant Commander Richard Nixon, who had lived in the district prior to his World War II service.
context_section_description: Nixon was discharged from the Navy at the start of 1946.  Within days, he and his wife Pat Nixon, the latter almost eight months pregnant, returned to Whittier.  They initially moved in with the candidate's parents, Frank and Hannah.  Nixon returned to his old law firm, but spent most of his time campaigning. Roy Day, chairman of the now-dissolved Committee, appointed himself as Nixon's campaign manager.  This self-appointment dismayed the candidate somewhat, and Nixon unsuccessfully sought to replace Day.
  Voorhis had been in Washington since August 1945, attending to congressional business.  He did not return to the district until August 1946, well after the June primary.  By his own account, he was busy dealing with:
  [The a]mendment of the Social Security Act, the Case Labor bill, the British loan, terminal leave pay for soldiers, and several appropriation bills [and] the most important problem our country had ever faced in all its history—the problem of what to do about atomic energy. I felt sure that the people of the district would rather have me stay on the job than come home to campaign.
  Beginning in February, the Republican hopeful began a heavy speaking schedule, addressing civic groups across the 400 square miles (1,000 km²) district.  Nixon's efforts to get publicity were aided by the birth of his daughter Tricia in late February.  The new father was extensively interviewed and photographed with his infant daughter.  Congressman Voorhis's office sent the Nixons a government pamphlet entitled Infant Care, of which representatives received 150 per month to distribute to their constituents. When Richard Nixon sent his rival a note of thanks in early April, the congressman responded with a letter proposing that the two debate once Congress adjourned in August.
  In mid-March, Nixon was approached by former congressman Hoeppel, who hated Voorhis.  Hoeppel offered to enter the Democratic primary in exchange for a payment of several hundred dollars plus the promise of a civil service job once the Republican was elected. After consulting with his aides, Nixon turned him down. Subsequently, Hoeppel filed as a Prohibition Party candidate. Voorhis was privy to these events through an informant close to the former representative, and was convinced that Roy Day had arranged to pay Hoeppel's filing fee.  The congressman feared that Hoeppel would serve as a stalking horse for Nixon, sparing the Republican from any "mudslinging".  Voorhis responded to Hoeppel's filing with a letter to his campaign manager, Baldwin Park realtor Jack Long, stating that "it would be worthwhile for us to try our level best to beat him in the Prohibition primary by a write-in campaign".
  On March 18, two days before the filing deadline, Nixon filed in both the Republican and Democratic primaries under California's cross-filing system. Voorhis also filed in the two major party primaries. Under cross-filing, if the same candidate won both major party endorsements, he would be effectively elected, with only minor party candidates to stand against him. Day advanced the $200 (the current equivalent of $2,230) for Nixon's filing fees, later noting that he had great difficulty being reimbursed.
  By late March, Nixon's stock speeches to civic groups were becoming worn.  Day hired political consultant Murray Chotiner for $580 for the primary campaign, and the consultant warned that unless new life came into the campaign, it was in serious danger.  In the following years, Chotiner was to become Nixon's campaign manager, adviser, and friend in an association that lasted until Chotiner's death a few months before President Nixon's 1974 resignation.
  Chotiner arranged for stories in local papers alleging that Voorhis had been endorsed by "the PAC", hoping that voters would take that to mean the Congress of Industrial Organizations's Political Action Committee (CIO-PAC). The CIO was a labor federation which later merged with the American Federation of Labor to form the AFL-CIO.  It had been organized in 1943 and took left-wing stands; its PAC was seen as a communist
caption: Nixon campaign flier for the primary election
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