Mississippi gubernatorial election, 1983

Mississippi gubernatorial election, 1983

November 8, 1983

Nominee William Allain Leon Bramlett Party Democratic Republican Popular vote 409,209 288,764 Percentage 55.10 38.88

County results

Governor before election William Winter Democratic Elected Governor William Allain Democratic

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The 1983 Mississippi gubernatorial election took place on November 8, 1983, in order to elect the Governor of Mississippi. Incumbent Democrat William Winter was term-limited, and could not for reelection to a second term.

Democratic primary

No candidate received a majority in the Democratic primary, so a runoff was held between the top two candidates. The runoff election was won by Attorney General William Allain, who defeated former Lieutenant Governor Evelyn Gandy.

Results

Runoff

Results

In the campaign, the private detective Rex Armistead, formerly with the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, helped to spread rumors that Allain had sexual intercourse with two African-American male transvestites.^[3][4][5] Allain denied the charges.^[4] The tranvestites went on the record with a lie detector but in 1984, after the election had been held, they claimed that they had never met Allain and had been paid for their testimony.^[3][6] Bramlett lost the general election, 288,764 (38.9 percent) to Allain's 409,209 (55.1 percent). Charles Evers, the African American civil rights activist from Fayette, ran as an Independent and polled 30,593 (4.1 percent).^[7] Carmichael ran in 1983 for lieutenant governor against the incumbent Democrat Brad Dye, who prevailed with 464,080 votes (64.3 percent) to Carmichael's 257,623 (35.7 percent). Bramlett hence outpolled Carmichael by just over 31,000 votes when both were on the ballot as ticket mates.^[7]

References