On November 5, 1940,  In his bid to represent Maryland’s sixth congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives, baseball legend Walter Johnson narrowly loses to William D. Byron, the Democrat incumbent, who will die in a plane crash in February. The Hall of Fame right-hander, elected as a Montgomery County Commissioner in 1938, receives 47% of the vote, but cannot overcome his opponent’s opportunity to ride FDR’s coattails. Johnson previously entered the Hall of Fame in 1936.