1910 South Carolina gubernatorial election

Democratic primary

Candidates

• Cole L. Blease, State Senator from Newberry
• John T. Duncan
• Claudius Cyprian Featherstone, Laurens County attorney
• F.H. Hyatt
• Thomas Gordon McLeod, Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina
• John Gardiner Richards, Jr., State Representative from Liberty Hill, Kershaw County

By 1910, the South Carolina Democratic Party had split into two factions: the well-to-do farmers with ties to Clemson College, and the tenant farmers who largely did not benefit from many of the proposals instituted by Benjamin Tillman and his followers. Many of these poor farmers escaped the fields to the relative prosperity of a mill town. Coleman Livingston Blease, a lawyer from Newberry, sought to portray himself as the candidate for the downtrodden and oppressed white man who had not benefited from the Tillman era. Blease and prohibitionist candidate Claudius Cyprian Featherstone emerged as the front runners in the Democratic primary on August 30. Featherstone and his conservative allies attacked Blease for his coarse behavior, similar to A.C. Haskell's attacks on Tillman in the gubernatorial election of 1890, but once again the attacks only strengthened the candidacy of the antagonist. On September 13, Blease won by just over 5,000 votes in the runoff to essentially become the next governor of South Carolina because there was no opposition in the general election.

Results

Runoff results

General election

The general election was held on November 8, 1910, and Coleman Livingston Blease was elected the next governor of South Carolina without opposition. Being a non-presidential election and few contested races, turnout was much less than the previous gubernatorial election.

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References

References

1. Glashan, Roy R.. (1979). "American Governors and Gubernatorial Elections, 1775-1978". Meckler Books.
2. "SC Governor, 1910". Our Campaigns.
3. (1910). "The World Almanac and Encyclopedia, 1911". The Press Publishing Co. (The [[New York World]]).