Bob Graham, former Florida governor and U.S. senator, dies at 87

Bob Graham, a consensus-building moderate Democrat who as a two-term Florida governor and a three-term U.S. senator became one of the most popular politicians in the state’s history and then one of the Senate’s most ardent opponents of the Iraq War, died April 16 at the age of 87.

His daughter Gwendolyn Graham confirmed the death in a statement on social media. No further details were immediately available.

Mr. Graham retired from the Senate in 2005 after nearly four decades in public office. Apart from a short-lived campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, he never failed in a run for elected office. He was also among the relatively few (five) Democrats elected governor of Florida in about as many decades, as the long-dominant state party lost its grip on what had become a volatile swing state trending to the right.

Mr. Graham, whose half brother Philip, sister-in-law Katharine and nephew Donald were publishers of The Washington Post, made an early fortune in real estate development, helping to turn his father’s dairy and cattle farm into a planned suburban community eventually called Miami Lakes. He made millions of dollars through real estate investments while pursuing a political career. He won a seat in the Florida House in 1966 and served for much of the 1970s in the state Senate.

His father, also a state legislator, had lost the Democratic primary for governor in 1944, a disappointment that Mr. Graham said fueled his interest in politics. With Gov. Reubin Askew (D) term-limited in 1978, Mr. Graham won a crowded Democratic primary to succeed him and then trounced his Republican opponent, Jack Eckerd, of the Eckerd drugstore empire, in the general election.

Mr. Graham had little statewide recognition going into the 1978 race and was perceived in some circles as a rich liberal from South Florida. But his campaign got a boost from the “workday” strategy orchestrated by pioneering political consultant Robert Squier.