ABSTRACT
It seemed logical to assume in late 1961 that Richard Nixon, who came so close to winning the presidency a year earlier, would have little problem being elected governor in his native state in 1962; but logic ran up against the vagaries of politics. While most polls in 1961 indicated that Nixon could beat Pat Brown by a comfortable margin, the pollsters could not then calculate the effects of a divisive Republican primary battle. In addition, California Democrats had found new life after Brown's triumph over Knowland and would have the rare advantage of incumbency in taking on the Republican challenger. Perhaps Nixon's biggest problem, as he recalled, "was that I had no great desire to be governor of California."1 Sensing this lack of commitment, Californians had no great desire to elect him, for he failed to generate the requisite widespread enthusiastic support for his candidacy, even within his own party, and therefore lost to Brown.2
