In 1960, McGovern decided to run for the U.S. Senate and challenge the Republican incumbent Karl Mundt, a formidable figure in South Dakota politics whom McGovern loathed as an old-style McCarthyite. The race centered mostly on rural issues, but John F. Kennedy's Catholicism was a drawback at the top of the ticket in the mostly Protestant state. McGovern made careless charges during the campaign, and the press turned against him; he would say eleven years later, "It was my worst campaign. I hated so much I lost my sense of balance." McGovern was defeated in the November 1960 election, gaining 145,217 votes to Mundt's 160,579, but the margin was one third of Kennedy's loss to Vice President Richard M. Nixon in the state's presidential contest.