He defeated incumbent Senator Ralph Yarborough in the 1970 Democratic senatorial primary and won the general election against George H. W. Bush.

As Treasury Secretary, he helped win the ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the passage of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993.

The elder Bentsen's parents, Peter and Tena, had come from Denmark to be homesteaders and farmers at Argo Township, near White and Brookings, South Dakota; they experienced many hardships, including loss of their first dwelling and belongings to fire, crop failure, and poor medical care.

Their son started out harvesting and taming mustangs for local farmers, then served in the United States Signal Corps during World War I.

Lloyd Sr. and his brother Elmer helped with the family business, investing in land purchase, becoming the "premier colonizers and developers of Hidalgo County", and gaining a substantial fortune from the "Pride O Texas" citrus trademark.

)[9] After brief service as a private in intelligence work in Brazil, he trained to be a pilot and in early 1944 began flying combat missions in B-24s from Foggia, Italy, with the 449th Bomb Group.

[citation needed] At age 23, he was promoted to major and given command of a squadron of 600 men, overseeing the operations of 15 bombers, their crews, and their maintenance units.

[citation needed] Bentsen flew thirty-five missions against many heavily defended targets, including the Ploiești oil fields in Romania, which were critical to the Nazi war production.

The 15th Air Force, which included the 449th Bomb Group, destroyed all petroleum production within its range, eliminating about half of Nazi Germany's sources of fuel.

Bentsen's unit also flew against communications centers, aircraft factories and industrial targets in Germany, Italy, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.

Bentsen participated in raids in support of the Anzio campaign and flew missions against targets in preparation for the landing in southern France.

[citation needed] In addition to the Distinguished Flying Cross, Bentsen was awarded the Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters.

[14] Consistent with this position, Bentsen was among the most vocal supporters of using increased stimulus spending in order to combat stagflation, believing gains in employment would more effectively reduce the national debt than austerity measures that were being considered by the Ford administration.

[16] Bentsen upset incumbent Ralph Yarborough, a liberal icon, in a bruising primary campaign for the 1970 Texas Democratic Senatorial nomination.

His television advertising featured video images of rioting in the streets at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, implying that Yarborough was associated with the rioters.

[17][18] Bentsen's campaign and his reputation as a centrist Democrat served to alienate him not only from supporters of Yarborough, but from prominent national liberals, as well.

Indeed, during the 1970 Senate race, the Keynesian economist John Kenneth Galbraith endorsed the Republican candidate, then U.S. Representative and future president George H. W. Bush, arguing that if Bentsen were elected to the Senate, he would invariably become the face of a new, more moderate-to-conservative Texas Democratic Party and that the long-term interests of Texas liberalism demanded Bentsen's defeat.

[citation needed] By October 1975, Bentsen, generating little national attention or significance in the polls, scaled back his campaign to a limited effort in areas of 8 to 10 states, hoping for a deadlocked convention.

In 1982, he defeated James M. Collins of Dallas, who had first dispatched the strongly conservative State Senator Walter Mengden of Houston in the Republican primary.

[23] In 1988, Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts chose Bentsen to be his running mate in that year's presidential election, beating out Ohio Senator John Glenn, who was considered the early favorite.

Bentsen was selected in large part to try to lure away the state of Texas and its electoral vote for the Democrats, even with fellow Texan George H. W. Bush at the top of the Republican ticket.

[25] Bentsen was responsible for one of the most widely discussed moments of the campaign during the vice presidential televised debate with fellow Senator Dan Quayle.

"[27] Peter Goldman and Tom Mathews wrote in The Quest for the Presidency 1988 that Bentsen "was the forgotten man" of the campaign until the exchange with Quayle.

[29] Bentsen considered running for president in the 1992 presidential election, but he, along with many other Democrats, backed out because of Bush's apparent popularity following the 1991 Gulf War.

[34] In 1995, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said in an interview with Larry King when asked which Democrats she admired: "I like Lloyd Bentsen very much indeed, I was sad when he resigned.

His memorial service was held on May 30 at the First Presbyterian Church of Houston, where Bentsen and his wife had been members for many years, and was presided over by his then-pastor, William Vanderbloemen.

[32] His legacy also includes many water, wastewater and other infrastructure projects in the impoverished colonias of south Texas, the preservation of natural areas across the state, and major funding for numerous medical facilities.

[41] His grandson, Lloyd Bentsen IV was a senior research fellow for the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas.