ExplanationHawkins launched her own electoral career by campaigning as a consumer advocate. In 1972, she became the first woman elected to statewide office in Florida by winning a seat on the Florida Public Service Commission. In 1974, she was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate. The nomination went to businessman Jack Eckerd, who then lost the general election to the Democrat Richard B. Stone. The seat was vacated by the retiring one-term Republican Edward Gurney, with whom Hawkins and others in the Florida party had quarreled in the past. In 1976, Hawkins was reelected to the Public Services Commission despite the Jimmy Carter victory in Florida over U.S. President Gerald R. Ford, Jr. In 1978, she was the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor on the ticket headed by her former intraparty rival Jack Eckerd. They lost to then-State Senator Bob Graham and State Representative Wayne Mixson. In 1980, she defeated former Congressman Bill Gunter to win election to the United States Senate; she was Florida's first woman elected to:
