Jeremiah Denton ran as a Republican for a U.S. Senate seat from his home state of Alabama in 1980. He first easily defeated former U.S. Congressman Armistead Selden in the Republican primary. Selden was the candidate of choice of the Republican establishment in the state. He then achieved a surprise victory with 50.15 percent of the vote in November over Democrat Jim E. Folsom, Jr., who himself had defeated the incumbent, Donald W. Stewart, in the Democratic primary. In doing so, Denton became the only retired admiral elected to the United States Senate. He was the first Republican to be popularly elected in the state since the direct election of U.S. Senators began in 1914, he first Republican senator since Reconstruction to represent Alabama in the U.S. Senate, and the first Catholic to be elected to statewide office in Alabama. Compiling a conservative voting record in the U.S. Senate, Denton was featured in a 1981 article in Time Magazine called “The Admiral from Alabama”. In 1986, Jeremiah Denton narrowly lost his bid for reelection to 7th District then-Democratic Congressman Richard Shelby receiving 49.72 percent of the vote. Shelby became a Republican in 1994. In 2007, Denton’s first wife and mother of his seven children, died — after sixty-one years of marriage. Jeremiah Denton died of complications from a heart ailment at a hospice in Virginia Beach on March 28, 2014 at age 89. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery with his wife Jane.