Background
J. Sergeant Reynolds had been elected as a Democrat to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1965, [2] at a time of profound political change in Virginia due to the Twenty-fourth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act [3] greatly expanding an electorate that had previously been proportionately the smallest in the country due to poll taxes and literacy tests. [4]
In 1969, Sargeant Reynolds had been the only candidate to gain a majority in the first Democratic party primary, and gained statewide office in spite of the first non-Democratic gubernatorial win since 1881. [5] He was universally seen as the Democrats' best hope to recapture the governors' mansion in 1973, but eight months into his tenure as lieutenant governor a desperate shock would occur when it was discovered he had a brain tumor. [6] Doctors always ruled out surgery and hoped that radiation treatment and rest would solve the problem, [7] but ultimately Reynolds would die at the age of just thirty-four on June 13.
With the death of Reynolds, confusion emerged over how to select candidates. [8] State Senator and defeated 1969 Democratic gubernatorial primary candidate Henry Howell had already considered an independent run by the end of June, [8] especially as he believed a convention of Democratic regulars would fail to nominate him. [9] By mid-July, it had been announced that no primary election would be held and the Democratic party would nominate its candidate by convention on August 14. [10] In this convention, a little-known forty-three-year-old from Clifton Forge who had entered the race only eight days previously, George J. Kostel, prevailed over three conservative and one liberal challengers on the fourth ballot. [11]
The previous day, Howell announced he had obtained sufficient signatures to file and obtain ballot access as an independent candidate. [12] whilst the Republican Party caucus saw five potential nominees identified by August 17, [13] although the conservative pro-Byrd junior George Mason Green and the more moderate George P. Shafran had emerged as frontrunners two weeks earlier, with the party arguing Howell's candidacy produced a need for wide appeal. [14] Backed privately by sitting governor Linwood Holton, Shafran would claim the nomination on the second ballot on August 21. [15]
Campaign
From the beginning, Howell's hope was to hold the labor backing that turned to Holton in the 1969 gubernatorial election after Howell lost the primary. [16] This he would gain from the AFL-CIO in the final week of August, [17] when it was known that both Kostel and Shafran supported Virginia's existing right-to-work law. [18]
By the second week of September, all three candidates were heavily campaigning across the state. [19] Howell would speak in his typical flamboyant style, focusing on the utility and banks, who he felt were operating without necessary contraints, [20] as part of his message of "keeping the big boys honest". [a] [9] Kostel would deny this as the candidates travelled around the state. [21] Shafran and Kostel made busing into a major issue, with Shafran strongly condemning it, whilst Howell attempted strongly to evade it. [22]
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