United States Senator Happy Chandler, a Democrat, resigned his Senate seat to become Commissioner of Baseball on November 1, 1945. Republican Governor of KentuckySimeon S. Willis appointed Stanfill, a Republican, to the vacant Senate seat on November 19, 1945. Stanfill did not run for election to the seat. He served from November 19, 1945, to November 5, 1946, when his successor, John Sherman Cooper who had won the seat by election, assumed the Senate seat. Stanfill then resumed the practice of law and later retired to Lexington, Kentucky.