In 1906 he was elected to the Australian House of Representatives for the seat of Wannon after a successful campaign targeting the anti-union leanings of the Anti-Socialist sitting member, Arthur Robinson.

McDougall was defeated in Wannon in 1913, largely due to a general swing against Labor and a redistribution, and returned to his farm, running unsuccessfully for Flinders in 1914 and Grampians in 1915 and 1917.

[2] McDougall's poem The White Man's Burden,[3][4] which denounced war, was used by the Nationalist Party in the 1919 election as evidence of Labor's contempt for servicemen.

Six returned servicemen, stirred by this rhetoric, lured McDougall from his home and left him in an Ararat street having been tarred and feathered.

McDougall retired subsequently to write his memoirs, dying at Ararat on 11 April 1957, survived by two sons and a daughter.