South Carolina gubernatorial election, 1910

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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.

1 Democratic Primary
2 General Election
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Democratic Primary

By 1910, the Tillmanites 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 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 South Carolina Democratic Party's primary on August 30. Featherstone and his conservative allies attacked Blease for his coarse behavior, similar to A.C. Haskell's attacks of 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.

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

Democratic Primary Runoff
Candidate	Votes	%	±%
Coleman Livingston Blease	56,250	52.6	+20.9
Claudius Cyprian Featherstone	50,605	47.4	+18.9

[edit] General Election

The 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.

South Carolina Gubernatorial Election, 1910
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Democratic	Coleman Livingston Blease	30,739	100.0	0.0
Majority			30,739	100.0	0.0
Turnout			30,739
	Democratic hold

1910 South Carolina gubernatorial election map, by percentile by county. 65+% won by Blease

[edit] See also

[edit] References

Jordan, Frank E. The Primary State: A History of the Democratic Party in South Carolina, 1876-1962, pp. 26-28.
Lander, Jr., Ernest McPherson (1970). A History of South Carolina, 1865-1960. University of South Carolina Press, p. 49. ISBN 0872491692.
"Official Count By State Executive Committee", The News and Courier, 3 September 1910, p. 2.
"Blease Has Majority of 5,645", The News and Courier, 18 September 1910, p. 1.