Lewis Heisler Ball (September 21, 1861 – October 18, 1933) was an American physician and politician from Mill Creek Hundred, New Castle County, Delaware.

Most obvious to the public was the bitter division in the Republican Party caused, in part, by the ambitions of J. Edward Addicks for a seat in the U.S. Senate.

A gas company industrialist, he spent vast amounts of his own fortune to build a Republican Party, with that purpose in mind.

Ball was elected to the U.S. Senate on March 2, 1903, and served the remaining two years of the term with the Republican majority in the 58th Congress.

The repeated inability of the Delaware General Assembly to fulfill this constitutional duty contributed strong evidence throughout the nation of the need for the Seventeenth Amendment providing for the popular election of U.S.

[citation needed] Then, in 1922, Ball failed to support du Pont as he sought a full term in the U.S. Senate himself.

By 1924 du Pont thought he had a score to settle and defeated Ball for their party’s nomination for a full term in 1924.

[citation needed] Ball died on the morning of October 18, 1933, at his home in Faulkland, Delaware, due to pneumonia.