Except in U.S. presidential elections, the Alaska Democratic Party was very successful in the early days of statehood and the late territory days (pre-1959), featuring such characters as territorial governor and later national senator Ernest Gruening. Gruening was one of only two senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which authorized an expansion of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Bob Bartlett, also a Democrat, and erstwhile secretary of the territory, was the first senator from Alaska, and remained a senator until his death in 1968. William A. Egan, also of the Alaska Democratic Party, was elected the first governor of the State of Alaska. Until the election of governor Bill Walker, he was the only governor of Alaska of either party to have been born in Alaska. In the U.S. House meanwhile, Democrat Ralph J. Rivers was the state's first representative from statehood until 1967.