Arkansas gubernatorial election, 1978

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Arkansas gubernatorial election, 1978
Flag of Arkansas (1924-2011).svg
 1976November 7, 1978 1980  
  Bill Clinton (37899881792) (cropped2).jpg A. Lynn Lowe of AR.jpg
Nominee Bill Clinton Lynn Lowe
Party Democratic Republican
Popular vote335,101193,746
Percentage63.36%36.64%

Arkansas1978Gov.png
Election results by county
Clinton
  50-60%
  60-70%
  70-80%
  80-90%

Lowe
  50-60%
  60-70%

Governor before election

David Pryor
Democratic

Elected Governor

Bill Clinton
Democratic

The Arkansas gubernatorial election of 1978, held on November 7, was the first time that future President of the United States Bill Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas.

President of the United States Head of state and of government of the United States

President of the United States (POTUS) is the title for the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.

Bill Clinton 42nd president of the United States

William Jefferson Clinton, commonly known as Bill Clinton, is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Prior to the presidency, he was the governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981, and again from 1983 to 1992, and the attorney general of Arkansas from 1977 to 1979. A member of the Democratic Party, Clinton was ideologically a New Democrat and many of his policies reflected a centrist "Third Way" political philosophy.

Contents

Democratic primary

At this time, one gubernatorial term was two years. Incumbent two-term Democratic Governor David Pryor decided to not seek re-election in order to run for the United States Senate, as his predecessor and future Senate colleague Dale Bumpers did. [1]

Democratic Party (United States) political party in the United States

The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party. The Democrats' dominant worldview was once social conservatism and economic liberalism while populism was its leading characteristic in the rural South. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt ran as a third-party candidate in the Progressive Party, beginning a switch of political platforms between the Democratic and Republican Party over the coming decades, and leading to Woodrow Wilson being elected as the first fiscally progressive Democrat. Since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition in the 1930s, the Democratic Party has also promoted a social liberal platform, supporting social justice.

David Pryor United States politician

David Hampton Pryor is an American politician and former Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives and United States Senator from the State of Arkansas. Pryor also served as 39th Governor of Arkansas from 1975 to 1979 and was a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives from 1960 to 1966. He served as the interim chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party, following Bill Gwatney's assassination.

United States Senate Upper house of the United States Congress

The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, which along with the United States House of Representatives—the lower chamber—comprises the legislature of the United States. The Senate chamber is located in the north wing of the Capitol, in Washington, D.C.

Candidates

Monroe Alfred Julius Schwarzlose was a turkey farmer in Cleveland County, Arkansas, who was a Democratic primary opponent in 1980 of incumbent Governor Bill Clinton. He gained 31 percent of the ballots cast, but Clinton lost the ensuing general election to Republican Frank D. White.

Results

Clinton, a former assistant to U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright and since 1977 the state Attorney General, won the nomination easily.

J. William Fulbright American politician

James William Fulbright was a United States Senator representing Arkansas from January 1945 until his resignation in December 1974. Fulbright is the longest serving chairman in the history of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. A Southern Democrat and a staunch multilateralist who supported the creation of the United Nations, he was also a segregationist who signed the Southern Manifesto. Fulbright opposed McCarthyism and the House Un-American Activities Committee and later became known for his opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam War. His efforts to establish an international exchange program eventually resulted in the creation of a fellowship program which bears his name, the Fulbright Program.

Democratic primary results
PartyCandidateVotes%
Democratic Bill Clinton 341,11859.55
Democratic Joe Woodward123,67421.59
Democratic Frank Lady II76,02613.27
Democratic Randall Mathis26,0964.56
Democratic Monroe Schwarzlose 5,8981.03
Total votes572,809100.00

Republican nomination

A. Lynn Lowe, a Texarkana farmer, who served as state Republican Party chairman from 1974–1980, was unopposed for the 1978 gubernatorial nomination. He had also been the Republican nominee for Arkansas's 4th congressional district seat in 1966.

Lynn Lowe American politician

Aylmer Lynn Lowe, known as A. Lynn Lowe, was an American farmer and politician from Garland near Texarkana in Miller County in southwestern Arkansas, who was a major figure in the Arkansas Republican Party. He was the Republican gubernatorial nominee in 1978 against the Democrat Bill Clinton, served as state party chairman from 1974 to 1980, and was the GOP candidate in Arkansas's 4th congressional district in 1966, having been defeated by the Democrat David Pryor, then a state representative and a future governor and U.S. Senator, originally from Camden in Ouachita County in south Arkansas.

Texarkana, Arkansas City in the United States

Texarkana is a city in Arkansas and the county seat of Miller County. The city is located across the state line from its twin city, Texarkana, Texas. The city was founded at a railroad intersection on December 8, 1873, and was incorporated in Arkansas on August 10, 1880. Texarkana is the principal city of the Texarkana metropolitan area, which is ranked 274th in terms of population in the United States with 150,098 in 2016 according to the United States Census Bureau.

Republican Party (United States) political party in the United States

The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major political parties in the United States; the other is its historic rival, the Democratic Party.

Election result

Clinton won easily. [2]

Arkansas gubernatorial election, 1978
PartyCandidateVotes%
Democratic Bill Clinton 335,10163.36
Republican Lynn Lowe 193,74636.64
Total votes528,847100.00

Clinton also led in fundraising. His campaign budget combined $709,234.00 while Lynn's was $171,382. [2]

Clinton, at the age of thirty-two, became the youngest Arkansas governor, the youngest governor in the United States since Harold E. Stassen won in Minnesota in 1938 at the age of thirty-one, and the youngest governor in nation at this time. In 1992 he was elected third-youngest U.S. President.

Lowe's total was the highest for a Republican nominee in Arkansas since Winthrop Rockefeller's third term bid in 1970. He carried fourteen out of seventy-five counties, including Miller, Columbia, and Union counties in South Arkansas.

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