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The 1953 Los Angeles mayoral election took place on April 7, 1953, with a run-off election on May 26, 1953. Incumbent Fletcher Bowron was defeated by Norris Poulson, a U.S. Representative. [1]
Municipal elections in California, including Mayor of Los Angeles, are officially nonpartisan; candidates' party affiliations do not appear on the ballot. [2]
Bowron had been the subject of various failed recall elections against him, including one in 1950 that said that Bowron was "guilty of 'false' representations or was 'grossly negligent' in his assurances [...] that he had rid the city of official corruption and organized crime." [3] Along with Poulson, three other candidates joined to challenge Bowron, including Lloyd Aldrich who failed to win the runoff against Bowron in the previous election. [4] In the primary, Poulson and Bowron advanced to the runoff election, with Poulson gaining more votes than Bowron. [5]
In the runoff election, Poulson defeated Bowron to become Mayor, ending Bowron's tenure of fourteen years. [1] [6]
| Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norris Poulson | 212,668 | 44.06 | |
| Fletcher Bowron (incumbent) | 179,205 | 37.13 | |
| Lloyd Aldrich | 70,823 | 14.67 | |
| Paul Burke | 16,455 | 3.41 | |
| Myra Tanner Weiss | 3,541 | 0.73 | |
| Total votes | 482,692 | 100.00 | |
| Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norris Poulson | 287,619 | 53.23 | |
| Fletcher Bowron (incumbent) | 252,721 | 46.77 | |
| Total votes | 540,340 | 100.00 | |
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Charles Norris Poulson was an American politician who represented Southern California in public office at the local, state, and federal levels. He served as the 36th Mayor of Los Angeles from 1953 to 1961, after having been a California State Assemblyman and then a member of the United States Congress. He was a Republican.
Fletcher Bowron was an American lawyer, judge, and politician. He was the 35th Mayor of Los Angeles from 1938 to 1953. A member of the Republican Party, he was at the time the city's longest-serving mayor and was the city's second longest-serving mayor overall after Tom Bradley, presiding over the war boom and very heavy population growth, and building freeways to handle them.
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