The 1972 Vermont gubernatorial election took place on November 7, 1972. The incumbent RepublicanGov.Deane C. Davis was not a candidate for re-election to another term as Governor of Vermont. The Democratic nominee, Thomas P. Salmon, defeated the Republican nominee, Luther F. Hackett, to become his successor. Future U.S. senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders ran as a member of the Liberty Union Party.[1]
^ abTuesday, October 3, 1972, Bernard Sanders, 31, after losing the Senate race, runs for governor in 1972 under the Liberty Union banner. At a debate with his two major-party rivals at Johnson State College, Sanders wins repeated applause from a crowd of 350 students as he attacks the Republican and the Democratic candidates for governor. He accuses the GOP of a welfare policy that would make poor people "eat dirt" and chides both parties for not advocating stiff taxation of corporations in Vermont.http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/politics/2015/05/26/sanders-begin-political-revolution/27991467/