Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, 1966

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Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, 1966
Flag of Pennsylvania.svg
  1962 November 8, 1966 (1966-11-08) 1970  

 
Nominee Ray Shafer Milton Shapp
Party Republican Democratic
Running mate Ray Broderick Leonard Staisey
Popular vote2,110,349 1,868,719
Percentage52.1% 46.1%

Pennsylvania Gubernatorial Election Results by County, 1966.svg

County results

Governor before election

Bill Scranton
Republican

Elected Governor

Ray Shafer
Republican

The Pennsylvania gubernatorial election of 1966 was held on November 8. Republican Ray Shafer, the state's incumbent Lieutenant Governor, was elected to the state's highest office after holding off a charge from future governor Milton Shapp.

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.

Raymond P. Shafer Recipient of the Purple Heart medal

Raymond Philip "Ray" Shafer was an American attorney and politician who served as the 39th Governor of Pennsylvania from 1967 to 1971. Previously, he served as the 23rd Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania from 1963 to 1967 and a Pennsylvania State Senator from 1959 to 1962. He was a national leader of the moderate wing of the Republican Party in the late 1960s.

Milton Shapp American businessman

Milton Jerrold Shapp was the 40th Governor of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania from 1971 to 1979 and the first Jewish governor of Pennsylvania. He was also the first governor of Pennsylvania to take advantage of an amendment to the state constitution lifting the ban on state governors succeeding themselves in office and authorizing them to serve a maximum of two consecutive terms at a time, while still requiring a minimum of four years out of office between any two such consecutive terms.

Contents

Primary

Lieutenant Governor Ray Shafer was endorsed by the party establishment and cruised to a primary win. His main opponent was the well known Harold Stassen, the liberal and somewhat eccentric former governor of Minnesota who had retired from the presidency of the University of Pennsylvania.

Harold Stassen 25th Governor of Minnesota

Harold Edward Stassen was the 25th Governor of Minnesota. He was a leading candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in 1948, considered for a time to be the front-runner. He thereafter regularly continued to run for that and other offices, such that his name became most identified with his status as a perennial candidate.

Minnesota State of the United States of America

Minnesota is a state in the Upper Midwest, Great Lakes, and northern regions of the United States. Minnesota was admitted as the 32nd U.S. state on May 11, 1858, created from the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory. The state has a large number of lakes, and is known by the slogan the "Land of 10,000 Lakes". Its official motto is L'Étoile du Nord.

University of Pennsylvania Private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is one of the nine colonial colleges founded prior to the Declaration of Independence and the first institution of higher learning in the United States to refer to itself as a university. Benjamin Franklin, Penn's founder and first president, advocated an educational program that trained leaders in commerce, government, and public service, similar to a modern liberal arts curriculum.

Milton Shapp, a wealthy and progressive electronics executive, used his own money to score an upset in the Democratic primary over the party establishment's choice, Bob Casey. Casey, who would later win the governorship in 1986, was a more conservative politician who relied on labor and rural support over the urban and suburban base that Shapp courted.

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.

Pennsylvania gubernatorial Democratic primary election, 1966 [1]
PartyCandidateVotes%
Democratic Milton Shapp 543,057 48.59
Democratic Bob Casey 493,866 44.19
Democratic Edwin Murray 80,803 7.23
Pennsylvania gubernatorial Republican primary election, 1966 [2]
PartyCandidateVotes%
Republican Ray Shafer 835,768 78.02
Republican Harold Stassen 172,150 16.07
Republican George Brett 63,366 5.92

Major candidates

Democratic

Jerrold Electronics was an American provider of cable television equipment, including subscriber converter boxes, distribution network equipment, and headend equipment in the United States.

Leonard C. "Len" Staisey was a Democratic politician from Pennsylvania. Staisey was born in Pittsburgh and lived for most of his life in Duquesne, a nearby mill town. He was a member of the State Senate from 1961 to 1966, when he resigned to run for Lieutenant Governor. Considered a rising star in the party, he ran on a ticket with Milton Shapp, who would lose to Ray Shafer. From 1968 to 1976, he served as an Allegheny County Commissioner and was considered one of the area's last machine politicians. In 1979, he was elected to the position of judge in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, and he served in this position until he resigned due to illness in 1989. The name of Staisey, who was blind from birth, adorns a Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh branch specializing in providing reading materials for the blind and physically handicapped.

Republican

Raymond Joseph "Ray" Broderick was a jurist and politician from Pennsylvania. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 24th Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania from 1967 to 1971 and as a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

(Walter Alessandroni was killed in a plane crash when it was too late to change the ballot for the primary, and was posthumously chosen for the Republican Lt. Gov. nomination; the party then selected Broderick)

Campaign

Shapp ran a spirited campaign,[ according to whom? ] in which he tagged himself as a "man against the machine", but the ambivalence of party leaders[ who? ] toward his renegade candidacy may have ultimately led to his defeat; his campaign was also hurt by fierce opposition from the Philadelphia media, over Shapp's personal involvement in attempting to stop the buyout of the Pennsylvania Railroad. [3]

In contrast to Shapp's exuberant campaign, Shafer had difficulty getting his campaign stabilized,[ according to whom? ] particularly after the original nominee for lieutenant governor, Attorney General Walter Alessandroni, was killed in an aviation accident. Shafer ran on a solid record as a liberal Republican,[ according to whom? ] but struggled to escape the reputation that his career was dependent upon Governor Bill Scranton; although he was able to collect the resources that would allow him to compete financially with Shapp due to a solid fundraising prowess, he was forced to spend much of the early portion of the campaign defending his independence. However, the party split within Democratic ranks proved too much for Shapp to overcome, and Shafer won a moderate victory. [4] [5]

The campaign was smeared by charges of discrimination by both candidates. The Jewish Shapp faced anti-Semitic commentary at many of his rallies and accused GOP committees in several counties of attempts to frighten voters by emphasizing hateful, outdated myths[ according to whom? ] about Shapp's religion. In contrast, Shafer asserted that Democrats were attempted to portray him as a racist; in the closing weeks of the campaign, pamphlets were distributed in minority neighborhoods, which alleged that Shafer's home included a restrictive covenant that would stop the sale of his property to any non-Caucasians. [4]

Results

Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, 1966 [6] [7]
PartyCandidateRunning mateVotesPercentage
Republican Ray Shafer Ray Broderick 2,110,34952.1
Democratic Milton Shapp Leonard Staisey 1,868,719 46.1
Constitutional Ed Swartz Rick Swaney 57,073 1.4
Socialist Workers George Taylor Herman Johansen 14,527 .3%

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References

  1. "Our Campaigns - PA Governor- D Primary Race - May 17, 1966". ourcampaigns.com. Retrieved December 19, 2016.
  2. "Our Campaigns - PA Governor- R Primary Race - May 17, 1966". ourcampaigns.com. Retrieved December 19, 2016.
  3. Pierre, Garry (November 26, 1994). "Milton J. Shapp Is Dead at 82: Ex-Governor of Pennsylvania". The New York Times. Retrieved July 3, 2013.
  4. 1 2 Kennedy, John J. (2006). Pennsylvania Elections: Statewide Contests From 1950-2004. University Press of America. ISBN   9780761832799.
  5. "Raymond P. Shafer, Allegheny's Governor of Pennsylvania". Allegheny College. Retrieved July 3, 2013.
  6. The Pennsylvania Manual, p. 626.
  7. The Pennsylvania Manual, p. 625.