Democratic incumbent. In 1978, he was consultant to the successful re-election campaigns of Jesse Helms in North Carolina and Strom Thurmond in South Carolina — the latter being Thurmond's last seriously contested race (he served until 2002, age 100). That same year, Finkelstein shepherded Carroll Campbell to his first win in South Carolina's Greenville-area 4th Congressional District. After a brief interlude early in 1979 as adviser to conservative Congressman Phil Crane, Finkelstein returned as one of the pollsters advising Ronald Reagan's primary campaign. His services were also reportedly sought by the George H. W. Bush campaign. In 1980, he engineered the improbable Senate victory of Long Island supervisor Alfonse D'Amato over incumbent Jacob Javits, another three-way contest where the Democrat (Congresswoman Liz Holtzman) was favored. He advised the successful campaign of 31-year-old State Senator Don Nickles for U.S. Senate from Oklahoma. Most unlikely was the victory (aided by National Congressional Club allies) of John East in the North Carolina Senate contest;<ref name="Allen, Kenneth S. 1988">Allen, Kenneth S., St. Petersburg Times, April 11, 1988, "Attack politics' specialist to lead Mack campaign"</ref> East was a little-known professor who used a wheelchair, recruited for the race by Jesse Helms and elected through the efforts of Ellis, Wrenn, Finkelstein and the Helms organization. Besides Campbell, House winners included Duncan Hunter in California and Denny Smith in Oregon (both 1980), the latter toppling House Ways and Means Committee chair Al Ullman. Finkelstein also had his share of Senate losses, including two by previous client James Buckley (1976, New York, and 1980, Connecticut), and with Avi Nelson (1978, Massachusetts). Finkelstein was also pollster-strategist for Maryland Congressman Robert Bauman, who narrowly lost his seat after he was charged in DC with homosexual solicitation, one month before the November election. 1980s During the 1980 campaign Finkelstein was a Reagan pollster and had been "aboard the Reagan campaign" since mid-1979. from the early primary days all the way through November. Having ridden (and driven) the Republican wave of 1977–80, he found the 1980s a period of consolidation, helping clients grow their base and win re-election. In 1981, Finkelstein was one of four pollsters designated to do work on behalf of the Reagan White House, paid by the Republican National Committee. (The others were Richard Wirthlin, Robert Teeter and Tully Plesser). Newsweek reported in 1982 that "each of the President's top three advisers has his own numbers man: "Wirthlin became