After his military tour of duty, he joined the company of Helen Kennedy, already an established figure in the public relations business in San Francisco and Oakland.
[2] Hannaford cast his first presidential vote in 1956 for Democrat Adlai Stevenson II, of Illinois, whose rhetoric and English diction greatly impressed him.
[3] Hannaford quickly switched to Reagan in the general election against Governor Edmund G. Brown, Sr., and thereafter stood with the conservative faction of the party.
Hannaford was then defeated 60 to 38 percent in the general election by the Democrat Ron Dellums, a liberal African American, who won his second term and was subsequently the mayor of Oakland.
[5] In defeat, Hannaford still ran ten thousand votes in his district ahead of Republican presidential nominee Richard Nixon, who otherwise carried forty-nine states that year against the Democrat George McGovern.
[6] He was senior counsel to APCO Worldwide, a public affairs and strategic communications firm based in Washington, D.C.[10] In 2014, he was honored as the Humboldt County Republican of the Year.