- Eugene Joseph McCarthy (March 29, 1916 – December 10, 2005) was an American politician, writer, and academic who represented Minnesota in both houses of the United States Congress for over 22 years, first in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959, then in the U.S. Senate from 1959 to 1971. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), Minnesota’s affiliate of the Democratic Party, McCarthy sought the party’s presidential nomination in the 1968 presidential election, challenging incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson on an anti–Vietnam War platform. He ran for president four more times.