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| Turnout | 41.43% | ||||||||||||||||
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  Davis: 40-50% 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% 80–90% Lungren: 40–50% 50–60% | |||||||||||||||||
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| Elections in California |
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The 1998 California gubernatorial election was an election that occurred on November 3, 1998, resulting in the election of Lieutenant Governor Gray Davis as the state's first Democratic governor in 16 years. Davis won the general election by an almost 20% margin over his closest opponent, Republican Attorney General Dan Lungren. Davis succeeded Pete Wilson who was term limited. The 1998 California gubernatorial election featured the state's only gubernatorial blanket primary, a practice which was later struck down in United States Supreme Court in California Democratic Party v. Jones in 2000.
The primary occurred on June 2, 1998. Davis defeated fellow Democrats Jane Harman and Al Checchi for the Democratic nomination. Davis received more votes than Lungren, who ran against less well-known opponents in the Republican primary. The primary set a record for spending in a California gubernatorial primary. Davis won 30 of California's 58 counties; no Democrat would win a majority of the counties again until Gavin Newsom in 2018.[a] Davis carried Mono County by a single vote, becoming the first Democratic candidate to ever carry that county in a gubernatorial election.[b] This is the most recent gubernatorial election in which a Democrat carried Amador County, Kings County, Riverside County, and Trinity County. San Bernardino County would not back a Democrat again until 2018.
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