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Parish results Edwards: 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% 80–90% Treen: 50–60% 60–70% | |||||||||||||||||
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Elections in Louisiana |
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Government |
The 1972 Louisiana gubernatorial election was held on February 1, 1972. Edwin Edwards defeated Republican candidate David Treen to become Governor of Louisiana.
Party primaries were held on November 6, 1971, and a run-off was held for the Democratic nomination on December 18, 1971. These were the last closed primaries for Governor of Louisiana before the state adopted its current primary election system.
This was also the last gubernatorial election not to take place in an off-year, as all elections starting from 1975 would take place 1 year before a presidential election.
Early in the campaign, conventional wisdom of many political analysts predicted that the race's top candidates would be Gillis Long, Jimmie Davis, and C.C. "Taddy" Aycock. [1] However, the two candidates to make the runoff, Edwin Edwards and J. Bennett Johnston, were relative newcomers to the Louisiana political scene, despite Edwards' Congressional tenure. [2]
Cousins Gillis and Speedy Long both ran in a rematch of their 1964 primary race for Congress when Speedy unseated Gillis. Ironically, Gillis reclaimed that House seat the next year when Speedy retired after Edwards and the Louisiana Legislature redistricted him into the same district as longtime incumbent Otto Passman.
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Democratic | Edwin Edwards | 276,397 | 23.54% | |
Democratic | J. Bennett Johnston | 208,830 | 17.79% | |
Democratic | Gillis William Long | 164,276 | 13.99% | |
Democratic | Jimmie H. Davis | 138,756 | 11.82% | |
Democratic | John G. Schwegmann | 92,072 | 7.84% | |
Democratic | Taddy Aycock | 88,465 | 7.54% | |
Democratic | Samuel Bell Sr. | 72,486 | 6.17% | |
Democratic | Speedy Long | 61,359 | 5.23% | |
Democratic | Frank T. Salter Jr. | 32,203 | 2.74% | |
Democratic | James Moore | 9,408 | 0.80% | |
Democratic | Warren J. "Puggy" Moity | 8,965 | 0.76% | |
Democratic | David L. Chandler | 7,244 | 0.62% | |
Democratic | Huey P. Coleman | 4,833 | 0.41% | |
Democratic | Harold Lee Bethune II | 3,032 | 0.26% | |
Democratic | Wilford L. Thompson Sr. | 2,535 | 0.21% | |
Democratic | Addison Roswell Thompson | 1,924 | 0.16% | |
Democratic | Jimmy Strain | 1,258 | 0.11% | |
Total votes | 1,182,043 | 100.00% |
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Democratic | Edwin Edwards | 584,262 | 50.19% | 26.65 | |
Democratic | J. Bennett Johnston | 579,774 | 49.81% | 32.02 | |
Total votes | 1,164,036 | 100.00% |
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Republican | Dave Treen | 9,732 | 92.06% | |
Republican | Robert Max Ross | 839 | 7.94% | |
Total votes | 10,571 | 100.00% |
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Democratic | Edwin Edwards | 641,146 | 57.2% | 42.8 | |
Republican | Dave Treen | 480,424 | 42.8% | N/A | |
Total votes | 1,121,570 | 100.00% |
Louisiana Secretary of State. Primary Election Returns, 1971
Earl Kemp Long was an American politician who served as the 45th governor of Louisiana for nine years. A member of the Democratic Party, he held the same position that his brother, Huey Long, held years earlier (1928–1932).
Edwin Washington Edwards was an American politician and member of the Democratic Party who served as the U.S. representative for Louisiana's 7th congressional district from 1965 to 1972 and as the 50th governor of Louisiana for four terms, twice as many elected terms as any other Louisiana chief executive. He served a total of almost 16 years in gubernatorial office, which at 5,784 days is the sixth-longest such tenure in post-Constitutional U.S. history.
David Conner Treen Sr. was an American politician and attorney from Louisiana. A member of the Republican Party, Treen served as U.S. Representative for Louisiana's 3rd congressional district from 1973 to 1980 and the 51st governor of Louisiana from 1980 to 1984. Treen was the first Republican elected to either office since Reconstruction.
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The 1979 Louisiana gubernatorial election resulted in the election of David Treen as the first Republican governor of Louisiana since Reconstruction in the disputed election of 1872. Incumbent Governor Edwin Edwards was ineligible to run for a third term, making it the only gubernatorial election in Louisiana between 1972 and 1991 to not feature Edwards as a candidate.
The 1975 Louisiana gubernatorial election resulted in the re-election of Edwin Edwards to his second term as governor of Louisiana. This was the last time that a Democrat was re-elected to a second consecutive term as governor of Louisiana until 2019, 44 years later, when John Bel Edwards won re-election.
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