How LBJ Stole a Texas Senate Seat in 1948
In late March, audio recordings from a 1977 interview detailing how the late President Lyndon Johnson won the 1948 Senate contest in Texas were posted to the archival website of the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. The tapes renewed interest in the sordid episode that saved Johnson’s political career — and threw some light on how American elections have been, and can be, stolen.
In 1977, James Mangan, a reporter for the Associated Press, conducted a series of interviews that touched on the allegations of the 1948 steal. After Mangan died in 2015, family members found the cassette tapes of the interviews at his home in San Antonio. In 2022, they decided they were of such historical value that they needed to be donated to the LBJ Library in Austin.
Here we will take a detailed look at the events leading up to Johnson’s surprise “victory” in the 1948 Democratic primaries.
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