UNCONTESTED CANDIDATES

Historic Uncontested Candidates (1946-2008)
In the last sixty years, there have been 484 unopposed candidates. The 1950 and 1952 elections saw the most uncontested candidates (more than 150 in those two years alone). The Democrats have had more unchallenged candidates, with 260 (opposed to 209 uncontested Republicans). A large majority of the races were for Assembly seats (321 races), while 99 were State Senate races, 51 were members of Congress, and 12 members of the Board of Equalization.

Frequently Unopposed Candidates
Several candidates have run unopposed on multiple occasions. Lloyd W. Lowrey holds the record, having run unopposed eight times. Because of term limits and the large number of active political parties, it is highly unlikely that this record will ever be broken.  Ralph M. Brown and Gus Hawkins were elected unopposed seven times. Donald L. Grunsky and William Byron Rumford were elected unopposed six times. George A. Clarke, Glenn E. Coolidge, John F. Shelley and Randolph Collier were elected unopposed five times. Ten Candidates were elected unopposed four times: Carley V. Porter, Clair Engle, Francis C. Lindsay, Francis Dunn Jr., George R. Reilly, Hugh M. Burns, Hugh P. Donnelly, Marvin Sherwin, Richard H. McCollister, Vincent Thomas.

CANDIDATES WITH THE HIGHEST VOTE COUNTS
Another way to evaluate the relative successes of candidates is to compare the total vote counts they receive. The following is a list of the most popular candidates from each of four categories (the statewide category excludes US Senate and the Presidential candidates).

CANDIDATES WITH THE LOWEST VOTE COUNTS
It can also be interesting to see what the lowest votre requirements for a certain office might be. It takes a combination of factors to reach some of these numbers, as in the case of Assemblyman Fuentes, who got just over 50% of the votes in an election with low turn-out (10.24%) in an Assembly district with the second lowest voter registration rates in the state (only AD-46 has fewer voters).