1922 California gubernatorial election
The 1922 California gubernatorial election was held on November 7, 1922. Republican state treasurer Friend Richardson easily defeated Los Angeles County district attorney Thomas L. Woolwine. This was the first of three consecutive elections in which the incumbent lost in the Republican primary.
In the Republican primary, incumbent governor William Stephens faced a challenge from Richardson, who ran on a conservative platform opposed to the prior decade of progressive Republican rule in the state. Richardson won by nearly 25,000 votes. Although Stephens won the Prohibition Party primary, he was unable to accept the nomination under the Hawson amendment, having lost his own party's primary. In the Democratic primary, Woolwine defeated Mattison B. Jones by a large margin of over 30,000 votes.
Richardson would defeat Woolwine in the general election by over 200,000 votes. His 59.69% vote share was the largest yet achieved by a gubernatorial candidate in California, though that record would be broken in the next election. As governor, Richardson would roll back many of the progressive reforms of Stephens and his predecessor, Hiram Johnson.