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The long-time Socialist Mayor of Bridgeport came surprisingly close to being elected Governor of Connecticut in 1938, getting 26.30% of the vote to Republican Raymond Baldwin's 36.43% and incumbent Democratic Governor Wilbur Cross's 36.0%; McLevy was generally credited with (or blamed for) Cross's defeat. http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=114070 McLevy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper_McLevy was a "sewer socialist" of the Milwaukee variety, emphasizing efficient municipal management and keeping down taxes. "He withheld the lucrative contract for trash hauling, instituting municipal trash collection, saving the city hundreds of thousands of dollars. He took over Pleasure Beach where concessionaires had been reneging on taxes and rent for years. He began the process of putting all city purchases out for competitive bidding. In one instance when asphalt suppliers all supplied identical bids, he threatened to create a municipal asphalt supplier and broke their cartel. He championed transparency, opening all board and commission meetings to the press and the public ('Operation Goldfish Bowl')." See http://reason.com/…/what-bernie-sanders-wont-say-in-his-soci for an appreciation of McLevy by a libertarian. (At the same time one should not forget that McLevy was a union member and had won the mayoralty of Bridgeport with strong labor support. https://books.google.com/books?id=zAnbCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA29)

This race intrigues me because AFAIK it is the closest a Socialist Party candidate has ever gotten to being elected governor of any US state, though I would have to do more research on that. (The closest the Wisconsin Socialists ever got was Milwaukee Mayor Emil Seidel's 17.35% in 1918. http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=262319 Oklahoma was another Socialist stronghold, but the best I can find the party ever did there for Governor was Fred W. Holt's 20.78% http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=261799 in 1914.)

The race hinged more on public resentment of corruption in both major parties in Connecticut in 1938 than on McLevy's "socialism"--he had an off-and-on relationship with the national SP, for a while leaving it to join the more right-wing Social Democratic Federation (and split with the SP for good in 1950). But I still wonder if his election, even as a fluke, would do something for the SP's prestige, especially if he ran the Connecticut state government as efficiently as he did Bridgeport, or as Socialist mayors did Milwaukee.
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