The 1968 presidential election brought the Republican Richard Nixon to power and left the Democratic Party deeply divided. Strauss had long expected that his friend, Connally, would run for president and hoped that he would seek the Democratic nomination in the next election. Strauss opened a Washington, D.C., office for his law firm and became Treasurer of the Democratic Party in 1970, but less than a year later, Connally accepted an invitation from Nixon to serve as Secretary of the Treasury.