Madison, April 1, 1969. Another pivotal election. In April 1961, the city ended years of liberal leadership by electing a conservative mayor, businessman Henry Reynolds. In 1969, it’s poised to do so again – attorney William Dyke. A former top aide to the Republican lieutenant governor Jack Olsen, Dyke was making his third bid for […]
Madison, the first week of April, 1961
Madison, the first week of April, 1961. As the municipal election of 1961 approached, no one expected Mayor Ivan Nestingen to be a candidate. The 39-year-old attorney and former state representative was certainly popular enough to coast to victory — first elected in a special election in 1956, elected to a full two-year term in […]
Satya Rhodes-Conway Sweeps the Vote in Historic Mayors Race
Former east side alder Satya Rhodes-Conway beat Mayor Paul Soglin by a margin of over 20 percent, and more than 18,000 votes. Rhodes-Conway will become Madison’s first openly gay mayor when she’s inaugurated later this month. She’s currently the managing director of the Mayors Innovation Project, a think tank housed at UW-Madison that gives advice to […]
Madison Mayoral Election of 1969
Madison, April 1, 1969. The city elects a conservative mayor. Republican attorney William Dyke, who lost to Mayor Otto Festge by only sixty-four votes in 1967, announces his 1969 campaign on January 4; two days later, Festge announces he’s not running for a third two two-year term – a decision he says he made before […]
Madison Mayoral Election of 1967
Madison, spring 1967 – the Race for Mayor Mayor Otto Festge was elected to his first term in 1965 by eight thousand votes. But election night 1967, he’s ahead by only about thirty votes with just one precinct left to report. That’s what happens when taxes and crime are both up, college students are causing […]
Madison Mayoral Election, 1965
Madison, spring 1965 – the race for mayor The polite but partisan mayoral election of 1965 gives the city a clear choice between continuity and change: —Businessman George Hall, who ran Henry Reynolds’s successful campaigns in 1961 and 63, and Dane County clerk Otto Festge. Hall, sixty-four, is chairman of the Hyland Hall construction […]
