page_title: Don Young
section_title: 1972–1974
hierarchical_section_title: Don Young / U.S. House of Representatives / Elections / 1972–1974
caption_attribution_description: English: President Ford stands with Alaska Representative Don Young and Senator Ted Stevens who worked hard to establish Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, July 17, 1975.
context_page_description: Donald Edwin Young is an American politician serving as the U.S. Representative for Alaska's at-large congressional district since 1973. He is the Republican Party's longest-serving member of the U.S. House of Representatives in history, having represented Alaska for 24 terms.
  Young is the longest currently serving member of Congress, as well as the last remaining member who has been in office since the Nixon Administration; he became the 45th Dean of the House of Representatives on December 5, 2017, after the resignation of John Conyers from Michigan. He also is the oldest current member of either chamber of Congress. Prior to the special election following the death of U.S. Representative Nick Begich in a plane crash, he was Mayor of Fort Yukon from 1964 to 1967 and elected to the Alaska House of Representatives from 1967 to 1971 and Alaska Senate from 1971 until 1973.
context_section_description: Democratic State Senator Nick Begich was elected to the House of Representatives in 1970, to succeed Republican Howard Wallace Pollock, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for Governor of Alaska. Young ran against Begich in 1972 and placed second in the August 22 open primary with 13,958 votes (25.60%) to Begich's 37,873 (69.45%). Begich disappeared in a plane crash on October 16, 1972, 22 days before the November 7 general election. Begich won the general election with 53,651 votes (56.24%) to Young's 41,750 (43.76%) but was declared dead on December 29.
  Young ran in the special election on March 6, 1973, and defeated Democrat Emil Notti by 35,044 votes (51.41%) to 33,123 (48.59%). He won a full term in 1974 with 51,641 votes (53.84%) to Democratic State Senator Willie Hensley's 44,280 (46.16%). He credits his victory to his leadership of the fight for the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline System.
caption: Young with President Gerald Ford and U.S. Senator Ted Stevens in 1975
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