The 1974 California gubernatorial election took place on November 5, 1974. The primary elections occurred on June 4, 1974. Incumbent Governor and former actor Ronald Reagan was retiring after two terms. DemocraticSecretary of StateJerry Brown, son of former Governor Pat Brown, defeated RepublicanControllerHouston I. Flournoy in the general election. This is the first election since 1958 to not feature a Republican candidate that went on to become a U.S. president. With Brown’s election, California had a Democratic Governor and two Democratic Senators (John V. Tunney and Alan Cranston) for the first time since the Civil War.
This is the earliest election to feature a candidate who is still alive or living today as of 2024.
Brown had statewide name recognition, benefited from the fact Democrats outnumbered Republicans in California, and maintained a lead in most of the early polls. Flournoy began to gain in the polls as the election approached, but Brown won, although by a much smaller margin than predicted. Coincidentally, when Brown ran for Secretary of State four years earlier, he defeated a man named James Flournoy – no relation to Houston – in a very close election.
Primary results
Democratic
California Governor Democratic Primary Election, 1974[1]
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