.png) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
 County Results Cameron: 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% 80–90% >90% Daniel: 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
The1881 Virginia gubernatorial election was held on November 8, 1881. TheReadjuster Party candidate William Evelyn Cameron won in a historicupset election. The Readjusters were a unique state mixture of Republicans, populist (or "New Departure") Democrats, freedmen, poor voters, and those in favor of "re-adjusting" the state debt owed to Northern banks for the various internal improvements financed before thewar. Some of those internal improvements went to West Virginia, as they were physically located in there, as it counter-seceded from Virginia, who had sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War.
The Democratic candidate, John Warwick Daniel, was aVirginia State Delegate andVirginia State Senator who was elected Representative in 1882 and thenUnited States Senator in 1886, succeeding the leader of the Readjuster Party,William Mahone. Cameron's Lieutenant Governor, a position that is separately elected, wasRepublicanJohn Francis Lewis. Lewis at the time of his election was a United States Marshal, and had previously served as Lieutenant Governor before resigning to serve as Senator upon the readmission of the State of Virginia to the United States.
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Readjuster | William E. Cameron | 113,464 | 52.97% | ||
| Democratic | John W. Daniel | 100,757 | 47.03% | ||
| Majority | 12,707 | 5.94% | |||
| Turnout | 214,221 | 100.00% | |||
| Readjustergain fromDemocratic | Swing | ||||
.jpg)
.jpg)
