Texas Gubernatorial election 1952: Why Allan Shivers ran against himself for the Democrats and the Republicans in a ballot
We live in an age when election results are contested even after the event - the current President of the United States still maintains he won in 2020, when he did not - but a ballot from the past is drawing attention on social media.
The 1952 Texas gubernatorial - as in, for the post of governor - election was held on November 4, 1952. But a screenshot from Wikipedia has left people baffled as it shows that the same candidate stood for both the Democrats and the Republicans.
Fake news (to quote the aforementioned US president)? Actually not.
Explaining the 1952 Texas gubernatorial election
Allan Shivers, a Democrat, was the incumbent governor in Texas at the time, having taken office 1949. In the Democrat primaries in July 1952 he defeated a housewife called Allene Traylor, and also an attorney named Ralph Yarborough, who would go on to become a Democratic senator who represented Texas from 1957 to 1971 - so he went on to become the Democratic candidate.
This is where the horse-trading comes in. There was also a presidential election that year, and Shivers, no doubt impressed by General Dwight D Eisenhower’s war record, had endorsed Eisenhower, who was the Republican candidate.
In order to attract votes for their presidential nominee, the Republicans endorsed the Democratic state ticket, which included Shivers, leading to the bizarre situation in which Shivers stood against himself, for both parties.
In the end, he won 1,375,547 Democrat votes and 468,319 from Republican voters, leading to the least surprising election result in history - in which Allan Shivers was returned as governor.
Recent replies to the tweet have seen the jokes come out in force, with one person posting: “I’m just glad the right man won.”
Dwight D Eisenhower
Eisenhower was named the Americans’ Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during the Second World War by President Roosevelt, and then became the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, planning and carrying out Operation Overlord - which is better known as D-Day - to liberate northern France and then the rest of Europe.
His campaign, which included backing Allan Shivers, his rival party’s candidate, was successful - he won the presidency in 1952, and served two terms from 1953 to 1961.