Peter Dinwiddie Wigginton, September 6, 1839 (Springfield, Ill.) – July 7, 1890 (Oakland, Calif.)
VP candidate for American Party (1888)
Running mate with nominee: James Langdon Curtis (1808-1903)
Popular vote: 1615 (0.01%)
Electoral vote: 0/401
The campaign:
This was the last campaign for the group that could trace their history to the old Anti-Masonic Party. When it became apparent at their convention that delegates from California and New York had formed an alliance to control the proceedings, half of the members walked out. Not an encouraging start for the 1888 election season.
Included in their platform was a fourteen year residence requirement for naturalization and a policy of excluding socialists and anarchists from citizenship.
Wigginton became the running mate after James Geer (or Greer) declined the nomination.
Their popular vote (mostly from California) was almost invisible and with that the American Party left the political theater.
Election history:
1864-1868 - District Attorney of Merced County (Calif.)
1875-1879 - US House of Representatives (Calif.) (Democratic)
1879-1882 - District Attorney of Merced County (Calif.)
1886 - Governor of California (American Party) - defeated
Other occupations: attorney, newspaper publisher, businessman
Buried: Mountain View Cemetery (Oakland, Calif.)
Notes:
Family moved to Wisconsin in 1843
Attended University of Wisconsin-Madison
Moved to Idaho, then Snelling, Calif. 1862.
Moved to San Francisco in 1880.
Earned a placed in the Hall of Fame for the website The Strangest Names In American Political History.
Successfully contested his defeat for re-election to US Congress.
Supported Stephen Douglas in 1860.
Campaigned for secessionists candidates in California during the Civil War.
Buried in the same cemetery as Victor Jules “Trader Vic” Bergeron, Jr., Henry Kaiser, and Elizabeth "Black Dahlia" Short.
If elected VP would have died in office.
