1965 Virginia gubernatorial election

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Nominee Mills Godwin Linwood Holton William J. Story Jr. Party Democratic Republican Conservative Popular vote 269,526 212,207 75,307 Percentage 47.9% 37.7% 13.4%

County and independent city results Godwin:     30–40%     40–50%     50–60%     60–70%     70–80% Holton:     30–40%     40–50%     50–60%     60–70% Story:     30–40%     40–50%     50–60%

Governor before election Albertis Harrison Democratic Elected Governor Mills Godwin Democratic

In the1965 Virginia gubernatorial election, incumbent Governor of the U.S. state,Albertis Harrison, aDemocrat, was unable to seek re-election due to term limits. For the first time in many decades there was an uncontested Democratic primary, in which incumbentLieutenant GovernorMills Godwin was unopposed.^[1]Linwood Holton, an attorney fromRoanoke, was nominated by theRepublican Party, whilst the newly formed Virginia Conservative Party nominated William J. Story Jr. ofChesapeake.

This is the last timeYork County would vote Democratic in a gubernatorial election until2025.

For the previous six decades, Virginia had had the most restricted electorate in the nation due to a cumulative poll tax and literacy tests, completely disenfranchising most blacks and poorer whites.^[2] This allowed for state politics to be dominated by the conservative Democratic "Byrd Organization", as "antiorganization" factions were rendered impotent by the inability of almost all their potential electorate to vote.^[2] Things would be substantially changed inthe previous year's presidential election, as strong registration drives would almost double black voter registration from around 110,000 to 200,000 in a few years.^[3]

Incumbent lieutenant governorMills E. Godwin was viewed as the leading Democratic candidate for Governor from the time of the previous year's elections,^[4] especially after Harry Byrd Jr. chose not to run in December.^[5] Godwin was a product of the Byrd Organization but not shackled to its traditional thinking:^[6] he sought alliances with unions, urban whites and the growing black electorate as well as Byrd stalwarts.^[7]

Opposition to Holton's new strategies within the organization led to the formation of firstly the Conservative Council and then a "Conservative Party" led byJohn Birch Society member William Story.^[8] The Conservatives believed that the pay-as-you-go political system must be reinforced and federal control eliminated throughout the state.^[9] The Conservatives attacked Godwin as

Lyndon [Johnson]'s fair-headed boy backed by welfare payments funded by hardworking taxpayers.^[8]

Besides Story and his Conservatives,George Lincoln Rockwell, an avowedwhite supremacist and founder/leader of theAmerican Nazi Party, ran as an independent candidate. Rockwell planned his run at least a year in advance, telling an associate that such a campaign would be useful to inflame the reaction of the Jewish population.^[10][11] He filed for governor as an independent on April 20^[12] with a campaign that promoted white schools, law and order, taxes and welfare, anti-subversive commission, and relocation benefits.^[13] At the close of the campaign, Rockwell said that he would end NAACP meetings in the state.^[14]

• Mills E. Godwin, Jr.,Lieutenant Governor of Virginia (Democratic)
• A. Linwood Holton, Jr.,Roanoke attorney (Republican)
• William J. Story, Jr., assistant superintendent ofChesapeake City Public Schools (Conservative)
• George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of theAmerican Nazi Party (Independent)

Godwin won the election with a plurality over Holton and Story. Story's strength – around four points greater than expected in pre-election polls^[19] that gave him nine percent of the total^[20] – mainly came at the expense of the Democrats as counties in thePiedmont that had been won by Democrats with over seventy percent shrank to forty percent or less. Godwin did best in theTidewater Region, while Holton ran best in the traditionally RepublicanShenandoah Valley andSouthwest Virginia. Increased turnout due tothe Twenty-fourth Amendment helped Godwin. Whereas previous Republican gubernatorial candidates had typically won majorities of a limited black vote^[21] reaching up to ninety percent,^[22] Godwin is thought to have won seventy-five percent of a black vote estimated at seventy thousand.^[c][21] Despite the fact that Holton had opposed Massive Resistance, the association of the Republicans withBarry Goldwater was fatal for his chances of winning the newly enfranchised African-Americans.^[22]

Godwin's success was based on a very unlikely coalition of liberals and conservatives: he would even get people of radically different ideologies to work for him in different localities – Armistead Boothe in Arlington andWilliam Tuck in Danville.^[23]

Rockwell received 5,730 votes,^[24] slightly less than 1% of the total.^[24] While he was initially disappointed and shocked by his showing, only weeks later at a speech he spun it as a positive result, saying that

with a budget of $15,000, with a total press blackout, and with a 'Kosher conservative' [splitting the vote] ... I got 7,000 people to vote for a Nazi.^[24][25]

• Simonelli, Frederick J. (1999).American Fuehrer: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party. Urbana:University of Illinois Press.ISBN 978-0-252-02285-2.
• Schmaltz, William H. (2000) [1999].Hate: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party. Washington, D.C.:Brassey's.ISBN 978-1-57488-262-9.

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• Virginia gubernatorial elections
• 1965 United States gubernatorial elections
• November 1965 in the United States

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