Ray Blanton - 1974 Gubernatorial Campaign

1974 Gubernatorial Campaign

In 1974 Blanton won a twelve-person Democratic primary for governor. With just 23% of the vote, he defeated several well-financed opponents including flamboyant East Tennessee banker Jake Butcher. In the November general election he defeated the Republican nominee, attorney Lamar Alexander, receiving the largest number of popular votes ever achieved for a statewide race in Tennessee to that date, 575,205. Blanton's strongest condemnation of Alexander seemed to be that he had served for a time on Nixon's White House staff. Nixon had resigned in disgrace only a few months earlier. Blanton also took advantage of the wide perception that Alexander was a somewhat distant, upper-class individual (despite Alexander's modest background as the son of schoolteachers).