As "Time" would later write, Brookhart's "pugnacious cowhide radicalism nettled patrician Senators." Two years later, in the 1924 election, he made his first attempt to win a full term. Running again as the Republican nominee, Brookhart appeared to have defeated the Democratic candidate, Daniel F. Steck, by a small margin, with Brookhart getting 447,594 votes to Steck's 446,840. Brookhart thus took office on March 4, 1925, but Steck pursued a challenge with the Senate Committee on Elections and Privileges. In the cpmmittee hearings on Steck's challenge, the Iowa Republican Party sided with the Democrat Steck by filinf a brief that was sharply critical of Brookhart and accused him of disloyalty to the Republican presidential ticket in 1924 because of his support for the Progressive Party presidential candidate Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin.