1971 Virginia lieutenant gubernatorial special election

J. Sergeant Reynolds had been elected as a Democrat to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1965,^[2] at a time of profound political change in Virginia due to the Twenty-fourth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act^[3] greatly expanding an electorate that had previously been proportionately the smallest in the country due to poll taxes and literacy tests.^[4]

In 1969, Sargeant Reynolds had been the only candidate to gain a majority in the first Democratic party primary, and gained statewide office in spite of the first non-Democratic gubernatorial win since 1881.^[5] He was universally seen as the Democrats' best hope to recapture the governors' mansion in 1973, but eight months into his tenure as lieutenant governor a desperate shock would occur when it was discovered he had a brain tumor.^[6] Doctors always ruled out surgery and hoped that radiation treatment and rest would solve the problem,^[7] but ultimately Reynolds would die at the age of just thirty-four on June 13.

With the death of Reynolds, confusion emerged over how to select candidates.^[8] State Senator and defeated 1969 Democratic gubernatorial primary candidate Henry Howell had already considered an independent run by the end of June,^[8] especially as he believed a convention of Democratic regulars would fail to nominate him.^[9] By mid-July, it had been announced that no primary election would be held and the Democratic party would nominate its candidate by convention on August 14.^[10] In this convention, a little-known forty-three-year-old from Clifton Forge who had entered the race only eight days previously, George J. Kostel, prevailed over three conservative and one liberal challengers on the fourth ballot.^[11]

The previous day, Howell announced he had obtained sufficient signatures to file and obtain ballot access as an independent candidate.^[12] whilst the Republican Party caucus saw five potential nominees identified by August 17,^[13] although the conservative pro-Byrd junior George Mason Green and the more moderate George P. Shafran had emerged as frontrunners two weeks earlier, with the party arguing Howell's candidacy produced a need for wide appeal.^[14] Backed privately by sitting governor Linwood Holton, Shafran would claim the nomination on the second ballot on August 21.^[15]

From the beginning, Howell's hope was to hold the labor backing that turned to Holton in the 1969 gubernatorial election after Howell lost the primary.^[16] This he would gain from the AFL-CIO in the final week of August,^[17] when it was known that both Kostel and Shafran supported Virginia's existing right-to-work law.^[18]

By the second week of September, all three candidates were heavily campaigning across the state.^[19] Howell would speak in his typical flamboyant style, focusing on the utility and banks, who he felt were operating without necessary contraints,^[20] as part of his message of "keeping the big boys honest".^[a][9] Kostel would deny this as the candidates travelled around the state.^[21] Shafran and Kostel made busing into a major issue, with Shafran strongly condemning it, whilst Howell attempted strongly to evade it.^[22]