Abstract
George C. Perkins was elected as the fourteenth governor of California in 1880, and his administration was to be the first under the new 1879 state constitution. The Sacramento Bee reported that the Republican ticket of 1880 had been chosen by a large plurality, with the exception of the Supreme Court Justices. Perkins' final vote tally was 67,965, with Hugh J. Glenn, the Democratic and New Constitution Party candidate, receiving 47,647, and William F. White, the Workingmen's candidate, tallying 44,482. The Republican victory was complete and extended to both houses of the state legislature. There were ewenty-two new Republican state senators, five Democrats, eight Workingmen's and five coalition party candidates in the forty member senate. The Republican party's working majority was not quite as clear cut in the Assembly, with fifty-nine Republicans, nineteen Democrats, with the other forty-two seats held by nonpartisan coalition candidates. The Republican party had scored a victory in the three-way gubernatorial race, while receiving less than forty percent of the total vote. Most of the votes that White, the Workingmen's candidate, had received were at the expense of the Democratic party. The Workingmen's strength in San Francisco gave White 40,000 votes and Glenn only 3,784; this was the split that gave the Republicans the election.