Losing a 1940 bid for U.S. Senator, when he ran unsuccessfully as a liberal internationalist against isolationist Republican and longtime incumbent Hiram Johnson, Yorty left politics during World War II to serve in the United States Army Air Corps in the Pacific Theater, attaining the rank of captain in the Intelligence Branch. He resumed his Assembly seat after his discharge. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1950 and was reelected in 1952, but again lost his race for the U.S. Senate in 1954. In that special election for the two years remaining of the term of Richard M. Nixon, Yorty received 1,788,071 votes (45.5%) to Senator Thomas H. Kuchel's 2,090,831 (53.2%). Kuchel, a liberal Republican, had been appointed to the seat in 1953 by then-Governor of California Earl Warren when Nixon became vice president.