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 County results Municipality resultsRockefeller: 30-40% 40-50% 50-60% 60-70% 70-80% 80-90% O'Connor: 30-40% 40-50% 50-60% 60-70% Tie: 40-50% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The1966 New York gubernatorial election was held on November 8, 1966 to elect theGovernor andLieutenant Governor of New York. Incumbent RepublicanNelson Rockefeller won reelection. As of 2022, this is the last timeManhattan (New York County) voted for a Republican in a statewide election.
GovernorNelson Rockefeller angered conservatives by refusing to support Republican nomineeBarry Goldwater during the1964 presidential election. Polling showed Rockefeller behindEugene Nickerson,Frank D. O'Connor,Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr.,Howard J. Samuels, orRobert F. Wagner Jr. if they were the Democratic nominee.[1]
Members of the party wanted to run an independent campaign and a canvass of party units showed they wanted an independent candidate.[2]
TheLiberal Party of New York opposed Rockefeller. ChairDonald S. Harrington viewed him as "too conservative" and Rockefeller fought with MayorJohn Lindsay and U.S. SenatorJacob Javits, who the Liberals supported.[3]
O'Connor courted the Liberals, with him appointingEldon R. Clingan to his staff and promising toAlex Rose that the Liberals would be equals in his campaign. However, O'Connor voted to end cross-endorsements in the state legislature and was close to bossesCharles A. Buckley andIrwin Steingut, who the Liberals opposed. Roosevelt claimed that O'Connor was secretly promised the gubernatorial nomination in exchange for withdrawing from the1965 New York City mayoral election. PresidentLyndon B. Johnson and Vice PresidentHubert Humphrey pressured the party to support O'Connor.Adolf A. Berle, the former chair of the party, supported O'Connor, but Rose criticized Berle as "not even a member of our organization". On August 9, the Liberal Policy Committee voted unanimously to not support him.[4]
Roosevelt lobbied the party's leadership for their nomination for months.David Dubinsky "broke out the 20-year-old scotch" during a meeting according Roosevelt's friends. Dubinsky argued for supporting Roosevelt using polls showing him receiving at least one-fourth of the vote.Louis Stulberg and other leaders of theInternational Ladies Garment Workers Union opposed Roosevelt due to him not staying with the party after the 1949 election.[5]
Leo Koch nominatedJames Farmer at the party's convention. Roosevelt won the party's nomination.Murray Kempton stated that the convention was under the thumb of "comrade secretary"Ben Davidson, who chaired the convention. Harrington was selected as the lieutenant gubernatorial nominee.[6]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal | Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. | 209 | 82.28% | ||
| Liberal | James Farmer | 33 | 12.99% | ||
| Liberal | Abstain | 12 | 4.72% | ||
| Total votes | 254 | 100.00% | |||
| Did not vote | 67 | ||||
Paul L. Adams, the dean ofRoberts Wesleyan University, was nominated by theConservative Party of New York State.[8]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | Paul L. Adams | 239 | 74.92 | |
| Conservative | Donald H. Serrell | 68 | 21.32 | |
| Conservative | John J. O'Leary | 12 | 3.76 | |
| Total votes | 319 | 100.00 | ||
This was the last gubernatorial election to have no parties utilize electoral fusion.[10]
Roosevelt received the highest number of votes for any Liberal gubernatorial nominee in history. However, the Liberals received fewer votes than the Conservatives and fell from Row C to Row D.[11]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Frank D. O'Connor | 569 | 80.60 | |
| Democratic | Howard J. Samuels | 137 | 19.41 | |
| Total votes | 706 | 100.00 | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | Nelson Rockefeller (incumbent) | 2,690,626 | 44.61% | −8.47% | |
| Democratic | Frank D. O'Connor | 2,298,363 | 38.11% | −5.86% | |
| Conservative | Paul L. Adams | 510,023 | 8.46% | +6.02% | |
| Liberal | Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. | 507,234 | 8.41% | +4.23% | |
| Socialist Labor | Milton Herder | 12,730 | 0.21% | +0.04% | |
| Socialist Workers | Judith White | 12,506 | 0.21% | −0.13% | |
| Majority | 392,263 | 6.50% | −2.62% | ||
| Turnout | 6,031,482 | ||||
| Republicanhold | |||||
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