page_title: Robert B. Duncan
section_title: Political career
hierarchical_section_title: Robert B. Duncan / Political career
caption_attribution_description: English: Robert B. Duncan, U.S. Representative from Oregon
context_page_description: Robert Blackford Duncan was an American politician from the state of Oregon. A Democrat, he served multiple terms in the Oregon Legislative Assembly and as a U.S. congressman from Oregon. In the Oregon House of Representatives he served as speaker for four years, and in the U.S. House he represented two different districts. The Illinois native and World War II veteran ran three unsuccessful campaigns to be elected to the U.S. Senate.
context_section_description: In 1954, Duncan was nominated as a write-in candidate for the Oregon House of Representatives. Although he declined for economic reasons, in 1956, he was elected to the Oregon House, serving three terms and was elected Speaker of the Oregon House by his colleagues. In 1962, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives representing Oregon's 4th congressional district based in Medford.
  In the 1966 U.S. Senate election, Duncan was the Democratic candidate for the seat vacated by retiring Senator Maurine B. Neuberger. While Duncan strongly supported President Johnson's Vietnam War policies, his Republican opponent, Governor Mark Hatfield, was an outspoken critic. The differences between Duncan and Hatfield on the war would produce one of the great splits in the modern Oregon Democratic Party. The state's senior U.S. Senator, Wayne Morse—a staunch Democratic opponent of the Vietnam War—endorsed Hatfield over fellow Democrat Duncan, an act that infuriated Democratic Party regulars. This factor, along with Hatfield's statewide popularity, gave Hatfield a narrow victory. In 1967, Duncan moved to Portland where he lived until 1974, returning to the practice of law.
  In 1968, Duncan came back to challenge Senator Morse in the Democratic Senate primary. Again, Duncan's war views played a role. Though Duncan was initially far ahead of the anti-war maverick Morse, Morse closed the gap at the end and won a narrow victory, aided by the beginning of the Paris Peace Accords, which brought the possibility of the end of the war. Morse went on to narrowly lose in the general election to Republican state Representative Bob Packwood, who favored continued funding of the war.
  Duncan returned to his Portland law practice. He ran once more for the Senate in 1972, again losing the Democratic nomination to Morse, this time by a wider margin. Morse then lost to Senator Hatfield.  After Edith Green retired from Congress, Duncan ran for her Portland-based seat from Oregon's 3rd congressional district in 1974 and returned to the House. He served another three terms, and was upset in the 1980 Democratic primary by eventual winner Ron Wyden.
caption: Official portrait, 1975
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