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1958 Alabama gubernatorial election

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Field	Value
election_name	1958 Alabama gubernatorial election
country	Alabama
type	presidential
ongoing	No
previous_election	1954 Alabama gubernatorial election
previous_year	1954
next_election	1962 Alabama gubernatorial election
next_year	1962
election_date	November 4, 1958
image1	John Malcolm Patterson.jpg
nominee1	John M. Patterson
party1	Democratic Party (United States)
popular_vote1	234,583
percentage1	88.22%
image2	William Longshore.jpg
nominee2	William Longshore
party2	Republican Party (United States)
popular_vote2	30,415
percentage2	11.44%
title	Governor
before_election	Jim Folsom
before_party	Democratic Party (United States)
after_election	John M. Patterson
after_party	Democratic Party (United States)
map_image	1958 Alabama gubernatorial election results map by county.svg
map_size	250px
map_caption	County results
Patterson:

Patterson:
The 1958 Alabama gubernatorial election was held on November 4, 1958. Incumbent Democrat Jim Folsom was term limited and could not seek a second consecutive term.

Democratic Party nomination

At this time Alabama was a de facto one-party state. Because of this, every Democratic Party nominee was considered safe for election. The real contest for governor took place during the primary.

Popular incumbent Governor Jim Folsom, a racial moderate, was barred from running for reelection, as Governors could not succeed themselves at the time. Therefore, the Democratic primary was an open contest.

Candidates

Laurie C. Battle, U.S. Representative
John G. Crommelin, retired Rear Admiral
W. E. Dodd
Shearen Elebash
Jimmy Faulkner, former State Senator and former Mayor of Bay Minette
James Gulatte
Karl Harrison
George C. Hawkins, State Representative
C. C. Owen
John Malcolm Patterson, Attorney General
Shorty Price
A. W. Todd, Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries
Billy Walker
George Wallace, Third Judicial Circuit Judge and former State Representative

The two front-runners, Patterson and Wallace, held deeply different positions on racial segregation issues. While Patterson, known primarily as crime-fighting attorney general, ran on a very segregationist platform and accepted an official endorsement from the Ku Klux Klan, Wallace, a close ally of Folsom, refused to cooperate with the KKK and was endorsed by the NAACP.

After the election, aide Seymore Trammell recalled Wallace saying, "Seymore, you know why I lost that governor's race? ... I was outniggered by John Patterson. And I'll tell you here and now, I will never be outniggered again."

Primary results

Primaries were held on June 3, 1958.

Runoff

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Because none of the candidates won a majority, a runoff was held on June 24, 1958, in order to determine which candidate received the nomination.

Republican Party nomination

William Longshore, a former Republican Party nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives from the 9th district (lost, winning 34.12% votes) won the gubernatorial nomination unopposed.

General election

After his defeat, George Wallace, who was a racial moderate, modified his public position in order to gain the white support necessary to win the next election.

Notes

References

Riechers, Maggie. (March–April 2000). "Racism to Redemption: The Path of George Wallace". Humanities.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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