b. 1875 – Anahuac, Texas
Governor: 1931–1933
Ferguson was defeated by Attorney General Dan Moody in the 1926 governor’s race. She did not seek office in 1928, however, after the Texas Supreme Court rejected her husband’s petition to run in 1930, she entered the race but was defeated by Ross Sterling in a runoff.
In 1932, she won the May primary against Sterling, who was blamed when Texas began to feel the effects of the Great Depression. She narrowly won the democratic nomination and defeated the Republican candidate, Orville Bullington, to secure her second term as governor. Her second term did not engender as much controversary as the first, although she continued her liberal pardoning and parole policies. She advocated for a corporate income tax and a sales tax but was unsuccessful. She did not seek re-election in 1934 but ran unsuccessfully in 1940 at age 64, and received more than 100,000 votes.