James Strom Thurmond (December 5, 1902 – June 26, 2003) was an American politician who served as governor of South Carolina and as a United States Senator. He also ran for the presidency of the United States in 1948 under the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party banner. He garnered 39 electoral votes in that election. He later represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 to April 1956 and November 1956 to 1964 as a Democrat and from 1964 to 2003 as a Republican. He served as Senator through his 90s, and left office at age 100 as the oldest serving and longest-serving senator in U.S. history (although he was later surpassed in the latter by Robert C. Byrd). Thurmond holds the record for the longest serving Dean of the United States Senate in U.S. history at 14 years. He conducted the longest filibuster ever by a U.S. Senator in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957. He later moderated his position on race, but continued to defend his early segregationist campaigns on the basis of states' rights; he never fully renounced his earlier viewpoints. He was the third U.S. Senator to reach age 100 but the only one to do it while still in office.