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County results White: 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% Clinton: 50–60% 60–70% | |||||||||||||||||
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Elections in Arkansas |
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The 1980 Arkansas gubernatorial election was a biennial election for the governorship of Arkansas. One-term Democratic Governor and future President Bill Clinton was narrowly defeated by Republican Frank D. White. It was only the third time since Reconstruction that a Republican candidate had won the state's governorship.
Clinton ran again two years later and regained the governorship, continuing to serve until he was elected to the presidency in 1992.
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Democratic | Bill Clinton (incumbent) | 306,736 | 68.87 | |
Democratic | Monroe Schwarzlose | 138,670 | 31.13 | |
Total votes | 445,395 | 100.00 |
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Republican | Frank D. White | 5,867 | 71.75 | |
Republican | Marshall Chrisman | 2,310 | 28.25 | |
Total votes | 8,177 | 100.00 |
Schwarzlose's unexpected strong challenge in primaries and his 31 percent of the primary vote foreshadowed that Clinton could be in trouble for the upcoming general election. [3]
Clinton's increase in the cost of automobile registration tags had been unpopular. He was also hurt by President Jimmy Carter's decision to send thousands of Cuban refugees, some unruly, to a detention camp at Fort Chaffee, outside Fort Smith in Sebastian County in western Arkansas. [3] [4] (See Mariel boatlift.)
The 1980 general election was marked by decisive Republican victories—the GOP won the White House, a majority in United States Senate and 34 seats in the United States House of Representatives. Clinton's narrow loss was viewed as part of Reagan's coattails.
Frank White narrowly won the election. [2] : 48 [3]
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Republican | Frank D. White | 435,684 | 51.93% | +15.29% | |
Democratic | Bill Clinton (incumbent) | 403,241 | 48.07% | -15.29% | |
Total votes | 838,925 | 100.00% | N/A | ||
Republican gain from Democratic |
After Clinton lost the election in 1980, Max Brantley said: "The guy was like a death in the family. He was really destroyed after that election". [5] Rudy Moore also added: "He never blamed anybody else. He accepted the responsibility. He didn't whine about it. In fact, it was within days, we were trying to figure out what we could to do to improve his political life after that". [5]
After Clinton was defeated, he was offered the chance to lead the Democratic National Committee, instead of seeking reelection as Governor of Arkansas.[ clarification needed ] When he campaigned for election in 1982 against White, he said that he had learned the importance of adaptability and compromise from his defeat two years beforehand. [6]
Orval Eugene Faubus was an American politician who served as the 36th Governor of Arkansas from 1955 to 1967, as a member of the Democratic Party. In 1957, he refused to comply with a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, and ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent black students from attending Little Rock Central High School. This event became known as the Little Rock Crisis. He was elected to six two-year terms as governor.
Frank Durward White was an American banker and politician who served as the 41st governor of Arkansas. He served a single two-year term from 1981 to 1983.
Dale Leon Bumpers was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 38th Governor of Arkansas (1971–1975) and in the United States Senate (1975–1999). He was a member of the Democratic Party. He was counsel at the Washington office of law firm Arent Fox LLP, where his clients included Riceland Foods and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
The Solid South or the Southern bloc was the electoral voting bloc of the states of the Southern United States for issues that were regarded as particularly important to the interests of Democrats in those states. The Southern bloc existed between the end of the Reconstruction era in 1877 and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. During this period, the Democratic Party overwhelmingly controlled southern state legislatures, and most local, state and federal officeholders in the South were Democrats. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, Southern Democrats disenfranchised blacks in all Southern states, along with a few non-Southern states doing the same as well. This resulted essentially in a one-party system, in which a candidate's victory in Democratic primary elections was tantamount to election to the office itself. White primaries were another means that the Democrats used to consolidate their political power, excluding blacks from voting in primaries.
Reagan's coattails refers to the influence of Ronald Reagan's popularity in elections other than his own, after the American political expression to "ride in on another's coattails". Chiefly, it refers to the "Reagan Revolution" accompanying his 1980 election to the U.S. presidency. This victory was accompanied by the change of twelve seats in the United States Senate from Democratic to Republican hands, producing a Republican majority in the Senate for the first time since 1954.
Southern Democrats are members of the U.S. Democratic Party who reside in the Southern United States.
Young Timothy Hutchinson is an American Republican politician, lobbyist, and former United States senator from the state of Arkansas.
United States gubernatorial elections were held on November 5, 2002, in 36 states and two territories. The Republicans won eight seats previously held by the Democrats, as well as the seat previously held by Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, who was elected on the Reform Party ticket but had since renounced his party affiliation. The Democrats won 10 seats previously held by the Republicans, as well as the seat previously held by Maine governor Angus King, an independent. The elections were held concurrently with the other United States elections of 2002.
The Democratic Party of Arkansas is the affiliate of the Democratic Party in the state of Arkansas. The current party chair is Grant Tennille.
The 1978 Arkansas gubernatorial election, held on November 7, was the first time that future President Bill Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas.
The 1966 Arkansas gubernatorial election was held on November 8, 1966. Winthrop Rockefeller was elected governor of Arkansas, becoming the first Republican to be elected to the office since Reconstruction in 1872.
Bill Clinton served as the 42nd president of the United States (1993–2001) and as the 40th and 42nd governor of Arkansas. A member of the Democratic Party, Clinton first ran for a public office in 1974, competing in the congressional election for Arkansas's 3rd congressional district. After narrowly losing to incumbent representative John Paul Hammerschmidt, he ran for the office of Arkansas Attorney General in 1976. He won the Democratic primary comfortably, receiving over 55% of the popular vote. Witnessing his strong support during the primaries, Republicans did not nominate a candidate to run against him. Clinton won the general election unopposed. His experience as the attorney general was considered a natural "stepping-stone" to the governorship.
The 1982 Arkansas gubernatorial election was held on November 2, 1982. Former Democratic Governor Bill Clinton regained the position after having narrowly been defeated by Republican candidate Frank D. White at the previous election. Clinton held the position from January 1983 until he resigned after being elected president in 1992.
Edward Sheffield Nelson, known as Sheffield Nelson, is an American attorney, businessman and politician from the capital city of Little Rock, Arkansas. Originally a Democrat, Nelson in 1990 ran for governor of Arkansas as a Republican against then governor and future U.S. President Bill Clinton and in 1994 against another Democrat, the incumbent Governor Jim Guy Tucker.
Aylmer Lynn Lowe, known as A. Lynn Lowe, was an American businessman 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.
The 1996 United States elections were held on November 5. Democratic President Bill Clinton won re-election, while the Republicans maintained their majorities in both houses of the United States Congress.
The 1992 United States elections elected state governors, the President of the United States, and members of the 103rd United States Congress. The election took place after the Soviet Union crumbled and the Cold War ended, as well as the redistricting that resulted from the 1990 census. Often considered "The Year Of The Woman," these elections brought an increased number of female politicians to Washington such as Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Carol Moseley Braun (D-IL). Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas defeated incumbent President George H. W. Bush and businessman Ross Perot in the presidential election. The Democratic Party maintained their control of both chambers of Congress. This is the first Democratic trifecta since the Republican victory in the 1980 elections and the last one during the 20th century and the last one overall until 2008.
The 1996 United States Senate election in Arkansas was held on November 5, 1996. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator David Pryor decided to retire. Republican Tim Hutchinson won the open seat, becoming the first Republican to win a U.S. Senate seat in Arkansas since Reconstruction in 1872 and the first to ever be popularly elected in the state. He was the first to win this seat since 1870.
Marshall Ney Chrisman Jr., is a businessman from Ozark in Franklin County in northwestern Arkansas, who served from 1969 to 1970 as a Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives. For a single term, he represented Franklin and neighboring Johnson counties. In 1980 and 1982, Chrisman fell far short in primary bids against Frank D. White for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.
Bill Clinton served two tenures as governor of Arkansas. Elected in 1978, Clinton first served as governor for a single term from 1979 until 1981, losing his bid for reelection in 1980. After a two-year interregnum, Clinton returned to the governorship after winning the 1982 election. Clinton would be elected to five further terms, serving until mid-December, 1992, when he resigned amid his transition into the U.S. presidency after having been elected president in the 1992 United States presidential election. Clinton was the second-longest serving governor in the state's history, after Orval Faubus.