Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, 1958

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Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, 1958
Flag of Pennsylvania.svg
  1954 November 4, 1958 (1958-11-04) 1962  

  David L. Lawrence.jpg
Nominee David Lawrence Art McGonigle
Party Democratic Republican
Running mate John Morgan Davis John Walker
Popular vote2,024,8521,948,769
Percentage50.8%48.9%

Pennsylvania Gubernatorial Election Results by County, 1958.svg
County results

Governor before election

George Leader
Democratic

Elected Governor

David Lawrence
Democratic

The Pennsylvania gubernatorial election of 1958 was held on November 4. Democrat David Lawrence defeated Republican Art McGonigle by a smaller than anticipated margin.

Democratic Party (United States) Major 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.

David L. Lawrence governor of Pennsylvania

David Leo Lawrence was an American politician who served as the 37th Governor of Pennsylvania from 1959 to 1963. The first Catholic elected as governor, Lawrence is the only mayor of Pittsburgh to have also been elected as Governor of Pennsylvania. He served four terms as mayor, from 1946 through 1959.

Republican Party (United States) Major 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.

Contents

Primary

Lawrence easily dispatched incumbent Lieutenant Governor Roy Furman of Greene County, whose position within the party had been marginalized due to his poor relationship with Governor George Leader. Leader had once even described his colleague as unfit for the executive office. [1]

Roy E. Furman was the 21st Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania from 1955 to 1959, and the Speaker of the Pennsylvania House, 1936–1938.

Greene County, Pennsylvania County in the United States

Greene County is a county located in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 census, the population was 38,686. Its county seat is Waynesburg. Greene County was created on February 9, 1796, from part of Washington County and named for General Nathanael Greene.

McGonigle's major primary opponent was Harold Stassen, the former Governor of Minnesota and security advisor to President Eisenhower who was known for making a serious run for the party's nomination for president in 1948. Stassen had moved to the state to take the presidency of the University of Pennsylvania and was determined to return to electoral politics. Although the liberal Republican Stassen was viewed as a carpetbagger by state party machinery, his name recognition gave him credibility. McGonigle waged a vigorous campaign to counter Stassen's challenge, which saw the bakery executive crisscross the state by car and gaining grassroots support. Bill Livengood, the longtime Secretary of Internal Affairs, also entered the race after failing to gain the support of his party for another term at this office, but his campaign gained little attention.

Pennsylvania gubernatorial Democratic primary election, 1958 [2]
PartyCandidateVotes%
Democratic David Lawrence 730,22974.45
Democratic Roy Furman 194,46419.83
Democratic Ed Lavelle56,1885.73
Pennsylvania gubernatorial Republican primary election, 1958 [3]
PartyCandidateVotes%
Republican Art McGonigle 578,28654.52
Republican Harold Stassen 344,04332.44
Republican Bill Livengood138,28413.04

Major Party Candidates

Democratic

Pittsburgh City in western Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States, and is the county seat of Allegheny County. In 2017, a population of 302,407 lives within the city limits, making it the 63rd-largest city in the U.S. The metropolitan population of 2,324,743 is the largest in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the second-largest in Pennsylvania, and the 27th-largest in the U.S.

John Morgan Davis was the 22nd Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania from 1959 to 1963 and later was a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania County in Pennsylvania, United States

Schuylkill County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 census, the population was 148,289. The county seat is Pottsville. The county was created on March 1, 1811, from parts of Berks and Northampton counties and named for the Schuylkill River, which originates in the county. On March 3, 1818 additional territory in its northeast was added from Columbia and Luzerne Counties.

Republican

Arthur T. "Art" McGonigle (1905–1977) was a Pennsylvania businessman and the 1958 Republican Party nominee for state governor.

John M. Walker was a Republican politician from Pennsylvania. Born on January 15, 1905, in Leechburg, Pennsylvania, he was the son of a general manager of Allegheny Steel Company. Walker studied at Culver Military Academy before serving in the infantry in World War I. After obtaining a degree from University of Pittsburgh's School of Business Administration, he attended the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, graduating in 1925. Following his education, Walker practiced law in Leechburg.

Allegheny County, Pennsylvania County in the United States

Allegheny County is a county in the southwest of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. As of 2017 the population was 1,223,048, making it the state's second-most populous county, following Philadelphia County. The county seat is Pittsburgh. Allegheny County is included in the Pittsburgh, PA Metropolitan Statistical Area, and in the Pittsburgh Designated Market Area.

Campaign

Pennsylvania's branches of the two major parties entered the election in disparate states. Democrats were riding their largest wave of electoral success in nearly a century and quickly coalesced behind David L. Lawrence, the Mayor of Pittsburgh who had gained national fame as a reformer for his massive urban renewal projects earlier in the decade, but who retained a powerful traditional political machine Although Lawrence worried that his age (he was 69 at the time of the campaign) and his pious Catholic faith [4] may prove problematic, he was highly touted by party leaders . He easily defeated Lieutenant Governor Roy Furman in the primary after Governor Leader described Furman as unfit for higher office. [1]

Republicans, conversely, were just exiting a time in which their organization had gone through both electoral and financial disarray. The party had brought in McGonigle, a Reading businessman who had transformed Bachman Bakeries into the world's largest pretzel maker, to clean up their monetary problems. Although McGonigle had no intention of running for public office, his bookkeeping successes lead to many party bosses viewing him as a viable dark horse candidate. [1] [5]

Lawrence entered the race as the clear favorite and ran on a platform emphasizing how the successes he had achieved in Pittsburgh, such as with environmentalism, economic development, race relations, and bureaucratic reform, could be applied to state government. He ran a generally quiet and issues-based campaign and grew frustrated with what he perceived as growing reactionary behavior from the opposing party. McGonigle’s campaign was more energized and continuously attacked Lawrence both for representing an archaic machine style of politics and for his position that the possibility of instituting a state income tax deserved study. [1]

Despite political winds that greatly favored Democrats in the national arena, the party's successes in the state were marginal. Lawrence’s campaign was never able to invigorate the base of urban voters and unionized workers in the manner that McGonigle did with key Republicans. A combination of Lawrence’s generally liberal viewpoints, powerful Appalachian anti-Catholicism [6] and contempt for his position as leader as a strong political machine undercut support in one of the greatest areas of Democratic support: the outlying industrial counties surrounding Pittsburgh's Allegheny County. Despite a generally disappointing vote total, [4] Lawrence was able to hang on to his frontrunner position to win the election. [1]

Results

Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, 1958 [7] [8]
PartyCandidateRunning mateVotesPercentage
Democratic David Lawrence John Morgan Davis 2,024,85250.8%
Republican Art McGonigle John Walker 1,948,76948.9%
Socialist Workers Herman JohansenLouis Dirle8,677<0.01%
Totals3,986,854100.00%

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 [Kennedy, John J. (2006). Pennsylvania Elections: Statewide Contests From 1950-2004. University Press of America. ISBN   9780761832799.
  2. http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=43857.
  3. http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=43864.
  4. 1 2 McKenna, William J.; ‘The Influence of Religion in the Pennsylvania Elections of 1958 and 1960’; Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, vol. 29, no. 4 (October, 1962), pp. 407-419
  5. "PENNSYLVANIA: The New Twist". TIME Magazine. 21 April 1958. Retrieved 3 July 2013.
  6. See Menendez, Albert J.; The Religious Factor in the 1960 Presidential Election: An Analysis of the Kennedy Victory Over Anti-Catholic Prejudice, pp. 193, 196 ISBN   0786484934
  7. The Pennsylvania Manual, p. 728.
  8. The Pennsylvania Manual, p. 727.

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