1966 California gubernatorial election

The California gubernatorial election, 1966 was held on November 8, 1966. The election was a race between incumbent Governor Pat Brown, the Democratic candidate, and actor Ronald Reagan, the Republican candidate.

After his re-election victory over former Vice President Richard Nixon in 1962, Brown was strongly considered for Lyndon Johnson's 1964 ticket, a spot that eventually went to Hubert Humphrey. However, Brown's popularity began to sag amidst the civil disorders of the Watts riots and the early anti-Vietnam War demonstrations at U.C. Berkeley.

The Republicans seized upon Brown's sudden unpopularity by nominating a well known and charismatic political outsider – actor Ronald Reagan. With Richard Nixon working tirelessly behind the scenes and Reagan trumpeting his law and order campaign message, Reagan received almost 2/3 of the primary vote over George Christopher, the moderate Republican former mayor of San Francisco.

Reagan won the election in a landslide victory with 3,742,913 (57.55%) of the vote to Brown's 2,479,174 (42.27%).^[1][2]

• Autumn and Cardboard: The 1966 California Gubernatorial Election
• Reagan Heritage Archived 2005-11-24 at the Wayback Machine
• Bepress^{[permanent dead link]} (pg 13)
• SFgate Archived 2011-08-05 at the Wayback Machine