Loletta Didrickson

Jeff Merkley may have won a 45%-41% victory in yesterday’s Democratic primary, but it’s rare for a challenger who barely ekes out a primary win to oust incumbent United States Senators in the general election.  Of the twenty challengers to unseat incumbents in U.S. Senate races since 1996, only one did so after winning a primary by a narrower margin than Merkley did.  That was in 1996, when Peter Fitzgerald won a 52%-48% victory over Loleta Didrickson in the Illinois GOP primary, and then went on to defeat incumbent Carol Mosely-Braun.