[2] At the 1964 Republican National Convention, Fong became the first Asian American to receive delegate votes for his party's nomination for President of the United States.

In the Senate, Fong supported civil rights legislation and eliminating ethnic barriers to immigration.

[12] According to The Washington Post, Fong's political success can be partially attributed to the support he received from the powerful International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

[3] In office, Fong was generally regarded as a moderate Republican, voting in favor of many of President Lyndon B. Johnson's "Great Society" initiatives, such as the establishment of Medicare in 1965.

[20] Fong was booed by an audience for defending George W. Romney, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, in the wake of a real-estate industry scandal.

)[28]During Nixon's presidency, Fong was a vocal supporter of the Vietnam War, which reportedly left many Asian-American constituents displeased.

[3] According to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Fong's support for the Vietnam War led to him losing votes in the 1970 election, his last reelection campaign.

After retiring from the Senate, Fong faced financial and legal difficulties, including several lawsuits with a son over the family's businesses that forced him and his wife to declare bankruptcy in 2003.

[4] On August 18, 2004, Hiram Fong died of kidney failure at his home in Honolulu; he was the last living former U.S. senator born in the 1900s decade.

Fong also provided financial support to the preservation and inventorying of over a thousand boxes, crates, and trunks of documents.

Approximately 80 boxes of books accompanied Fong's papers, several dedicated his work on Senate committees such as the POCS.