Sandoval not the first

A local news report described Brian Sandoval’s “unprecedented—in Nevada—challenge against the sitting governor.”

Even if we limit the notion of challenges to an incumbent governor only to party primaries (which the news report didn’t), and even if we eliminate the minor candidates and gadflies who ran against governors, there are still plenty of precedents—major candidates who challenged incumbent governors: In party primaries incumbent Democratic Gov. Emmet Boyle faced Attorney General George Thatcher (1918), incumbent Republican Fred Balzar faced former U.S. House member and Reno Mayor Edwin Roberts (1930), and Democrat Grant Sawyer faced Attorney General Charles Springer and Clark County District Attorney Ted Marshall (1966).