Nany Evans oral history.indd - Washington Secretary of State

eally enjoyed going to Bellingham because we had good friends up there. Yakima was a
place we enjoyed, too. And of course Spokane, just because it was people you knew and
you could renew those friendships. So the campaigns were enjoyable in many ways. Dan
was always invigorated by the campaigns, but not the same way I was.
Hughes: Tell us your most vivid memories of that 1964 campaign? From the get-go, young
Dan Evans was a real underdog against Governor Al Rosellini, who was seeking a third
term.
Evans: But first he had to win the Republican nomination. There was one early poll, and I’m
not going to tell it right; Dan will tell it right. But they took a poll, and Joe Gandy had entered
the race (for the Republican nomination). Joe was extremely popular and well known
because he was a business man in Seattle, and also had been one of the key people in making
the Seattle World’s Fair a success. And later his widow, Laurene Gandy, became one of my
very dear friends because I got her to be chairman of the Governor’s Mansion Foundation
that I organized. But that’s another story. Joe’s candidacy frightened me because he had a
lot of immediate popularity, and supporters, and finances, which was extremely important.
And then there was the blond Lutheran minister – Dick Christensen. He was a very popular,
well-known. So they took a poll, and I’m going to tell the numbers wrong, but the question
was, “Do you know Dan Evans? —
Have you ever heard of Dan Evans?”
Hughes: Name recognition.
Evans: Two percent had. “Would
you vote for Dan Evans?” Four
percent. (laughing) More people
would vote for him than knew him.
Maybe it was six or seven percent,
but it was very low.
Hughes: Christensen ran for the
U.S. Senate earlier, against Warren
G. Magnuson.
Richard Christensen on the campaign trail. Washington State Archives
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