Changes

==Back-to-back Senate and gubernatorial races, 1961-1962==

==Back-to-back Senate and gubernatorial races, 1961-1962==

In the spring of 1961, Wilson, along with some seventy other individuals, paid the $50 filing fee to enter the [[special election]] for the [[United States Senate]] seat vacated by [[Vice President of the United States]] [[Lyndon B. Johnson]],<ref name=tsc/> who along with [[John Connally|John B. Connally, Jr.]], as [[U.S. Secretary of the Navy]], had joined the new administration of [[John F. Kennedy]]. Wilson trailed in fourth place in the special election with 121,961 votes (11.5 percent).<ref>''Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections''</ref> Ultimately, Republican [[John Tower]], then a college [[professor]] from [[Wichita Falls]] and later from Dallas, won the remaining five and one-half years of Johnson's term by approximately ten thousand votes over Senator William Arvis Blakley of Dallas. who had been appointed on an interim basis by Governor Daniel, himself a former U.S. senator and Texas attorney general.​

In the spring of 1961, Wilson, along with some seventy other individuals, paid the $50 filing fee to enter the [[special election]] for the [[United States Senate]] seat vacated by [[Vice President of the United States]] [[Lyndon B. Johnson]],<ref name=tsc/> who along with [[John Connally|John B. Connally, Jr.]], as [[United States . Secretary of the Navy]], had joined the new administration of [[John F. Kennedy]]. Wilson trailed in fourth place in the special election with 121,961 votes (11.5 percent).<ref>''Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections''</ref> Ultimately, Republican [[John Tower]], then a college [[professor]] from [[Wichita Falls]] and later from Dallas, won the remaining five and one-half years of Johnson's term by approximately ten thousand votes over Senator William Arvis Blakley of Dallas. who had been appointed on an interim basis by Governor Daniel, himself a former U.S. senator and Texas attorney general.​

Wilson did not seek a fourth two-year term as attorney general in 1962; instead he entered the Democratic gubernatorial primary against several prominent opponents, including [[incumbent]] Marion Price Daniel, Sr., of Liberty]], highway commissioner Marshall Formby  of Plainview]], General [[Edwin A. Walker]], who made [[anti-communism]] the centerpiece of his campaign, and the leading candidates, former U.S. Secretary of the Navy John Connally of Floresville, and [[liberal]] attorney Don Yarborough of [[Houston, Texas|Houston]] (no relation to his fellow liberal U.S. Senator [[Ralph Yarborough]] of Austin). In the campaign, Wilson was particularly critical of a politician not on the ballot: Lyndon Johnson. Wilson declared that Johnson had engineered Connally's candidacy because the vice president feared a Republican victory in Texas in 1962. According to Wilson, Johnson was engaged in "a move ... to oust Price Daniel, oust me, oust Senator Ralph Yarborough and gain complete control of the state government."<ref>Charles Ashman, ''Connally: The Adventures of Big Bad John,'' New York: William Morrow, 1974, p. 98.</ref>​

Wilson did not seek a fourth two-year term as attorney general in 1962; instead he entered the Democratic gubernatorial primary against several prominent opponents, including [[incumbent]] Marion Price Daniel, Sr., of Liberty]], highway commissioner Marshall Formby  of Plainview]], General [[Edwin A. Walker]], who made [[anti-communism]] the centerpiece of his campaign, and the leading candidates, former U.S. Secretary of the Navy John Connally of Floresville, and [[liberal]] attorney Don Yarborough of [[Houston, Texas|Houston]] (no relation to his fellow liberal U.S. Senator [[Ralph Yarborough]] of Austin). In the campaign, Wilson was particularly critical of a politician not on the ballot: Lyndon Johnson. Wilson declared that Johnson had engineered Connally's candidacy because the vice president feared a Republican victory in Texas in 1962. According to Wilson, Johnson was engaged in "a move ... to oust Price Daniel, oust me, oust Senator Ralph Yarborough and gain complete control of the state government."<ref>Charles Ashman, ''Connally: The Adventures of Big Bad John,'' New York: William Morrow, 1974, p. 98.</ref>​