 An ardent opponent of the Vietnam War, McGovern's popularity and profile were on an upward trajectory that would only be shadowed by his presidential run in 1972.Despite his landslide loss to Republican incumbent Richard Nixon, he continued to serve in the U.S. Senate for 9 more years as his party came to power at the state level.Forty years after the New Dealers had brokered a tenuous, short-lived agreement with the farmers and workers of South Dakota and ninety years after The Boy Orator of the Platte wooed voters on his "Whirlwind through the Midwest", the Democrats were back.