1965 United States gubernatorial elections

1965 United States gubernatorial elections

← 1964 November 2, 1965 1966 →
2 governorships
Majority party Minority party   Party Democratic Republican Seats before 33 17 Seats after 33 17 Seat change Popular vote 1,576,094 1,128,203 Percentage 56.44% 40.40% Seats up 2 0 Seats won 2 0
Democratic hold

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United States gubernatorial elections were held in November 1965, in two states.

After his re-election win, Richard J. Hughes tried to introduce an income tax, but that bill died. The tax would come into play after the state Supreme Court handed down a decision concerning property taxes for schools in 1973. Hughes became Chief Justice in 1974, and after much battling with then-Gov. Brendan Byrne and the New Jersey Legislature concerning taxes for public education, the income tax finally made it to New Jersey.^[1]

The 1965 Virginia Governor's Race was colorful in that not only a new governor emerged, (Mills E. Godwin, Jr.), who would go on to serve the term as a Democrat and later serve another term as a Republican in the 1970s,^[2] but that another opponent, A. Linwood Holton, Jr., would go on to serve a term as Virginia's first Republican Governor since Reconstruction.^[3] Not to mention that George Lincoln Rockwell, the 'American Hitler', ran in this race.^[4][5]