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Nick Galifianakis, who lost an infamous North Carolina Senate race to Jesse Helms, dies at 94 [1]

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Date: 2023-03-30  

The Democrat sought a promotion in 1966 when he campaigned for the 5th Congressional District, which at the time spanned from his Durham base west to Winston-Salem. During this campaign Galifianakis took advantage of his long name by famously spreading it across two side-by-side buttons, one saying “GALIFI” and the other “ANAKIS,” a tactic he’d repeat even though one confused voter reportedly said, “I'm all for Nick, but who's this 'Anakis' person?” Galifianakis himself was fond of saying his name “begins with a gal and ends with a kiss.”

Galifianakis won the primary runoff 53-47 against Smith Bagley, who was the grandson and heir of tobacco magnate R. J. Reynolds, and he pulled off that same performance in the general against Republican Fred Steele. But the fledgling congressman, who had a moderate voting record in D.C., wound up seeking a reconfigured constituency two years later because a federal court ruled that the existing map had too much of a population imbalance. The new 4th District now included the Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill areas and rural communities to the west, and it proved to be tougher for Galifianakis to hold.

The Democrat won his 1968 rematch with Steele just 51-49: According to analyst Kiernan Park-Egan, Richard Nixon carried the 4th that same year 40-33 against Democrat Hubert Humphrey, with another 27% favoring segregationist independent George Wallace. Galifianakis did better the following cycle by beating Republican Jack Hawke 52-48 in a nationally watched race that revolved around the congressman’s opposition to the Vietnam War. Galifianakis, though, got some unwelcome news soon after when the new map removed heavily Democratic Chapel Hill, a change that made a primary bid against 14-year Sen. B. Everett Jordan more incentivizing.

The two Democrats had similar policy stances, but the 75-year-old Jordan was about three decades Galifianakis’ senior and had just been operated on for colon cancer. The congressman, while making sure to avoid directly mentioning his opponent’s health or age, notably argued that “our leaders must be attuned to our new times” while also insisting that Jordan wasn’t doing enough in office. Galifianakis led 49-44, which was just shy of the majority he needed to avoid a runoff, and prevailed 55-45 in the second round.

Until recently, a win in the Democratic primary would have been tantamount to election in a statewide campaign in North Carolina, which had not had a Republican senator or governor since the early 1900s. However, the state was changing fast as conservative white Democrats, furious at their party’s support for civil rights, increasingly flocked to the GOP, a trend exemplified by Helms. Helms, who got his start in politics helping racist Democrats and as a right-wing member of the Raleigh City Council, had supported Nixon in 1968 while still identifying as a Democrat: Nixon soon beat Wallace 40-31 in the state and Helms, who was an influential TV and radio commentator who railed against the anti-war and civil rights movements, joined the GOP two years later.

Galifianakis still began the 1972 general election with a clear lead over Helms, but the Republican worked hard to change that. Helms, in a move that foreshadowed the racist tactics that would make him nationally infamous in 1990, ran under the slogan “Jesse Helms: He’s one of us,” something observers interpreted as a dog whistle against his opponent’s Greek heritage. Galifianakis believed Helms’ side was even more explicit, recalling that one sign read, “This is not Greece.”

And while the congressman spent the primary working to avoid being portrayed as a liberal, Helms did all he could to link him to Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern: Helms dubbed his foe “McGovernGalifianakis,” a line the New York Times described as “a tongue‐twister, to be sure, but a readily understood one in this normally Democratic state where the mention of Senator George McGovern's name brings shudders to even the stanchest of Democratic party regulars.” Galifianakis was hindered as well by conservative Democrats, including alienated Jordan supporters, whom Helms labeled “Jessecrats.”

The GOP also deployed a huge amount on TV buys, which made it harder for Galifianakis’ retail campaigning to break through: The Times said shortly before the election that Helms had outspent his rival three-to-one in recent weeks. The congressman pushed back on Helms’ own attempts to tie himself to Nixon by pointing out that he’d called the president a “Communist appeaser” less than a year prior and was far to the right of the administration, but it wasn’t enough. Helms prevailed 54-46, a win that made him North Carolina’s first popularly elected Republican senator, as Nixon was taking the state 69-29. Voters also made James Holshouser their first Republican governor in 72 years in yet another sign that the days of Democratic domination were coming to an end.

Helms immediately became a powerful force in national GOP politics and remained so until he retired in 2003, but Galifianakis was never able to relaunch his once-promising career. Galifianakis ran for the state’s other Senate seat in 1974 to succeed retiring Democrat Sam Ervin, a longtime conservative who had become a hero to liberals for his Watergate hearings, but he lost the primary 50-32 to Attorney General Robert Morgan. Galifianakis was later indicted for allegedly perjuring himself during an investigation into his ties to South Korean businessman Tongsun Park, who was at the center of the “Koreagate” scandal: The charge was eventually dropped, though only after the former congressman was ridiculed in Doonesbury.

Galifianakis never again ran for office, though his most famous nephew got a small measure of revenge in 2012 for the Senate campaign from four decades ago. Zach Galifianakis starred in the comedy “The Campaign” along with Will Ferrell as competing contenders for North Carolina’s then-fictional 14th Congressional District, and the racist father of Galifianakis’ character just happened to be a former operative for none other than Helms.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/30/2161157/-Nick-Galifianakis-who-lost-an-infamous-North-Carolina-Senate-race-to-Jesse-Helms-dies-at-94

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