Back Elección para gobernador de Kentucky de 1899 Spanish 1899年ケンタッキー州知事選挙 Japanese Выборы губернатора Кентукки (1899) Russian 1899年肯塔基州州长选举 Chinese
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  Taylor: 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% 80–90% >90% Goebel: 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% | |||||||||||||||||
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The 1899 Kentucky gubernatorial election was held on November 7, 1899, to choose the 33rd governor of Kentucky. The incumbent, Republican William O'Connell Bradley, was term-limited and unable to seek re-election.
During a contentious and chaotic convention at the Music Hall in Louisville, the Democratic Party nominated state Senator William Goebel. A dissident faction of the party, styling themselves the "Honest Election Democrats", were angered by Goebel's political tactics at the Music Hall convention and later held their own convention. They nominated former Governor John Y. Brown. Republicans nominated state Attorney General William S. Taylor, although Governor Bradley favored another candidate and lent Taylor little support in the ensuing campaign. In the general election, Taylor won by a vote of 193,714 to 191,331. Brown garnered 12,040 votes, more than the difference between Taylor and Goebel. The election results were challenged on grounds of voter fraud, but the state Board of Elections, created by a law Goebel had sponsored and stacked with pro-Goebel commissioners, certified Taylor's victory.
An incensed Democratic majority in the Kentucky General Assembly created a committee to investigate the charges of voter fraud, even as armed citizens from heavily Republican eastern Kentucky poured into the state capital under the auspices of keeping Democrats from stealing the election. Before the investigative committee could report, Goebel was shot by an unknown assassin while entering the state capitol on January 30, 1900. As Goebel lay in a nearby hotel being treated for his wounds, the committee issued its report recommending that the General Assembly invalidate enough votes to give the election to Goebel. The report was accepted, Taylor was removed from office, and Goebel was sworn into office on January 31. He died three days later on February 3.
Lieutenant Governor J. C. W. Beckham ascended to the office of governor, and he and Taylor waged a protracted court battle over the governorship. Beckham won the case on appeal, and Taylor fled to Indiana to escape prosecution as an accomplice in Goebel's murder. A total of sixteen people were charged in connection with the assassination. Five went to trial; two of those were acquitted. Each of the remaining three were convicted in trials fraught with irregularities and were eventually pardoned by subsequent governors. The identity of Goebel's assassin remains a mystery.