1926 California gubernatorial election
November 2, 1926
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County results Young: 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% 80–90% | |||||||||||||||||
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| Elections in California |
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The 1926 California gubernatorial election was held on November 2, 1926. Republican lieutenant governor C. C. Young defeated Justus S. Wardell in a landslide.
In the Republican primary, incumbent governor Friend Richardson was challenged by C. C. Young and Rex B. Goodell. Young, a progressive ally of U.S. senator and former governor Hiram Johnson, narrowly defeated Richardson by just over 15,000 votes. Although Richardson won the Prohibition Party primary, he was unable to accept the nomination under the Hawson amendment because he had lost his own party's primary. This was the second of three consecutive elections in which the incumbent lost the Republican primary. In the Democratic primary, Justus S. Wardell narrowly defeated Carl A. Johnson.
In the general election, Young won a record landslide with over 71 percent of the vote and a majority of more than 630,000 votes over Wardell, the largest percentage of the vote and margin in California history. He was the first candidate in California history to sweep every county in the state in a gubernatorial election.