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American politician
other people named Robert Duncan

Robert Blackford Duncan (December 4, 1920April 29, 2011) was an American politician from the state of Oregon. A Democrat, he served multiple terms in the Oregon Legislative Assembly and as a U. S. congressman from Oregon. In the Oregon House of Representatives he served as speaker for four years, and in the U. S. House he represented two different districts. The Illinois native and World War II veteran ran three unsuccessful campaigns to be elected to the U. S. Senate.

Robert B. Duncan was born in Normal, Illinois, on December 4, 1920. His father, Eugene Duncan, came to Illinois from a family in Missouri whose ascendants were originally from Scotland. His mother, Catherine Blackford, was of Welsh origin—her parents had immigrated from Wales to the United States in the late 19th century. Robert Duncan was the second of four boys: Carter, Bob, Clark and John Bruce. He attended public schools in Bloomington. In 1939, at the age of 18, he went with a friend to Alaska and he began college at the University of Alaska, staying through 1940 when he transferred to Illinois Wesleyan University where he graduated in 1942 with a bachelor's degree. The couple would have seven children together. The differences between Duncan and Hatfield on the war would produce one of the great splits in the modern Oregon Democratic Party. The state's senior U. S. Senator, Wayne Morse—a staunch Democratic opponent of the Vietnam War—endorsed Hatfield over fellow Democrat Duncan, an act that infuriated Democratic Party regulars. This factor, along with Hatfield's statewide popularity, gave Hatfield a narrow victory. In 1967, Duncan moved to Portland where he lived until 1974, Morse went on to narrowly lose in the general election to Republican state Representative Bob Packwood, who favored continued funding of the war. Duncan returned to his Portland law practice. He ran once more for the Senate in 1972, again losing the Democratic nomination to Morse, this time by a wider margin. Morse then lost to Senator Hatfield. After Edith Green retired from Congress, Duncan ran for her Portland based seat from in 1974 and returned to the House. He served another three terms from 1975 to 1981. He lost in an upset in the 1980 Democratic primary to eventual winner Ron Wyden.

In 1985, he returned to live in Oregon, settling in the coastal community of Yachats. Duncan lived in Portland until his death at the age of 90 at the Mirabella retirement home on April 29, 2011. His papers are housed in the Robert Blackford Duncan collection at the University of Oregon. A four volume book of his writings is in that collection and also is in the archival collections of Illinois Wesleyan University, Normal, Illinois; the University of Alaska in Fairbanks; and the Oregon Historical Society, Portland.