Political Career
Tsongas first entered politics as a city councillor, elected to the Lowell City Council in 1969 where he served two consecutive terms. Tsongas went on to serve as a county commissioner of Middlesex County, Massachusetts. In 1974 he ran for United States House of Representatives from a district anchored by Lowell. The district had elected only three Democrats in its entire existence and had been in Republican hands continuously since 1895. However, in the massive Democratic wave of the post-Watergate election of 1974, he defeated freshman Republican Paul W. Cronin by a 21-point margin. He was reelected in 1976, becoming the first Democrat to hold the district for more than one term. Increasingly popular and well-liked in Massachusetts, in 1978 he ran for and was elected to the Senate, defeating incumbent Edward Brooke by a 10-point margin.
Later that year, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and in 1984 announced his retirement from the Senate. His seat went to fellow Democrat and 2004 presidential nominee John Kerry. After fighting the illness he returned to politics, and ran for his party's nomination for President in 1992. Until the 1992 campaign, Tsongas had never lost an election. He was the first former Peace Corps volunteer elected to the U.S. Senate (1978). (In 1974, he and Christopher Dodd were the first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.)
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