The 1873 Wisconsin gubernatorial election was held on November 4, 1873. Democratic Party candidate William Robert Taylor was elected with 55% of the vote, defeating incumbent Republican Governor Cadwallader C. Washburn.[1]
Taylor was the first Democrat elected Governor of Wisconsin since William A. Barstow in 1853. He was nominated as the consensus candidate of the "Reform Party,"—a coalition of Democrats, Liberal Republicans, and Grangers, on a platform of political and economy reform.
Cadwallader C. Washburn was the incumbent Governor of Wisconsin, having been elected in the 1871 election. Prior to becoming Governor, he had served ten years in the United States House of Representatives and had served as a Union Army general in the American Civil War under Ulysses S. Grant.
William Robert Taylor, at the time of the 1873 election, was a Trustee for the State Hospital of the Insane. Previously, he had served as President of the state agriculture society, had been chairman of the Cottage Grove town board, and the Dane County board of supervisors, and had been a member of the Wisconsin State Senate and Assembly.
Taylor was the first Democrat to ever win Eau Claire County and Kenosha County. Jackson County and Pierce County voted Democratic for the first time since 1853 and Clark County and Racine County for the first time since 1855. Clark County, Jackson County, and Lafayette County would not vote Democratic again until 1932 while Pierce County would not back a Democrat again until 1960. Adams County and Monroe County failed to back the winner for the first time ever while Columbia County, Portage County, and Sauk County voted for the losing candidate for the first time since 1851.