such absence from Marion, in 1894, the Star'''s business manager quit, and Florence Harding took his place. She became her husband's top assistant at the Star on the business side, maintaining her role until the Hardings moved to Washington in 1915. Her competence allowed Harding to travel to make speeches—his use of the free railroad pass increased greatly after his marriage. Florence Harding practiced strict economy and wrote of Harding, "he does well when he listens to me and poorly when he does not". Harding was a trustee of the Trinity Baptish Church in Marion. In 1892, Harding traveled to Washington, where he met Democratic Nebraska Congressman William Jennings Bryan, and listened to the "Boy Orator of the Platte" speak on the floor of the House of Representatives. Harding traveled to Chicago's Columbian Exposition in 1893. Both visits were without Florence. Democrats generally won Marion County's offices in 1895, and though Harding lost the election for county auditor, he did better than expected. The following year, Harding was one of many orators who traveled across Ohio in support of the campaign of the Republican presidential candidate William McKinley, that state's former governor. According to Dean, "while working for McKinley [Harding] began making a name for himself through Ohio". Rising politician (1897–1919) State senator Harding tried again for elective office. Though he was a longtime admirer of Foraker, who by then had been elected to the U.S. Senate, he also maintained good relations with the party faction led by the state's other senator, Mark Hanna, who was McKinley's political manager, and chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC). With the support of Foraker and Hanna, Harding ran for state Senate in 1899, gained the Republican nomination, and was easily elected to a two-year term. Harding began his tenure in the state senate a political unknown, but ended it as one of the most popular figures in the Ohio Republican Party. He displayed calm and humility, characteristics that endeared him to fellow Republicans even as he overtook them in his political climb. Legislative leaders consulted him on difficult problems, and though it was then usual for state senators in Ohio to serve only one term, Harding was renominated in 1901. After the assassination of McKinley in September, the appetite for politics was temporarily lost in Ohio, but that November Harding won a second term, more than doubling his margin of victory to