The 1910 South Carolina gubernatorial election was held on November 8, 1910, to select the governor of the state of South Carolina. Coleman Livingston Blease won the Democratic primary and ran unopposed in the general election to become the 90th governor of South Carolina.
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Democratic primary
editCandidates
edit- Cole L. Blease, State Senator from Newberry
- John T. Duncan
- Claudius Cyprian Featherstone, Laurens County attorney
- F.H. Hyatt
- Thomas Gordon McLeod, Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina
- John Gardiner Richards, Jr., State Representative from Liberty Hill, Kershaw County
By 1910, the South Carolina Democratic Party had split into two factions: the well-to-do farmers with ties to Clemson College, and the tenant farmers who largely did not benefit from many of the proposals instituted by Benjamin Tillman and his followers. Many of these poor farmers escaped the fields to the relative prosperity of a mill town. Coleman Livingston Blease, a lawyer from Newberry, sought to portray himself as the candidate for the downtrodden and oppressed white man who had not benefited from the Tillman era. Blease and prohibitionist candidate Claudius Cyprian Featherstone emerged as the front runners in the Democratic primary on August 30. Featherstone and his conservative allies attacked Blease for his coarse behavior, similar to A.C. Haskell's attacks on Tillman in the gubernatorial election of 1890, but once again the attacks only strengthened the candidacy of the antagonist. On September 13, Blease won by just over 5,000 votes in the runoff to essentially become the next governor of South Carolina because there was no opposition in the general election.
Results
edit| Democratic Primary | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes | % |
| Coleman Livingston Blease | 33,411 | 31.7 |
| Claudius Cyprian Featherstone | 30,045 | 28.5 |
| Thomas Gordon McLeod | 25,263 | 24.0 |
| John Gardiner Richards, Jr. | 9,770 | 9.3 |
| F.H. Hyatt | 5,436 | 5.1 |
| John T. Duncan | 1,436 | 1.4 |
Runoff results
edit| Democratic Primary Runoff | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes | % | ±% |
| Coleman Livingston Blease | 56,250 | 52.6 | +20.9 |
| Claudius Cyprian Featherstone | 50,605 | 47.4 | +18.9 |
General election
editThe general election was held on November 8, 1910, and Coleman Livingston Blease was elected the next governor of South Carolina without opposition. Being a non-presidential election and few contested races, turnout was much less than the previous gubernatorial election.
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Coleman Livingston Blease | 30,832 | 99.8 | −0.2 | |
| Socialist | F. N. U. Thompson | 70 | 0.2 | +0.2 | |
| Majority | 30,762 | 99.6 | |||
| Turnout | 30,902 | ||||
| Democratic hold | |||||
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Glashan, Roy R. (1979). "South Carolina gubernatorial elections". American Governors and Gubernatorial Elections, 1775-1978. Meckler Books. pp. 284–285. ISBN 0-930466-17-9.
- ^ "SC Governor, 1910". Our Campaigns. Retrieved April 2, 2019.
- ^ The World Almanac and Encyclopedia, 1911. New York: The Press Publishing Co. (The New York World). 1910. p. 691.
- Jordan, Frank E. The Primary State: A History of the Democratic Party in South Carolina, 1876–1962. pp. 26–28.
- Lander, Ernest McPherson Jr. (1970). A History of South Carolina, 1865–1960. University of South Carolina Press. p. 49. ISBN 0-87249-169-2.
- "Official Count By State Executive Committee". The News and Courier. September 3, 1910. p. 2.
- "Blease Has Majority of 5,645". The News and Courier. September 18, 1910. p. 1.
External links
edit| Preceded by 1908 |
South Carolina gubernatorial elections | Succeeded by 1912 |