In the 1918 and 1920 elections, Henry Allen, a progressive, was elected governor. In 1922, after a 7-way primary, the Republican candidate was conservative William Y. Morgan. He lost to the Democratic candidate, a victim of a severe farm recession and probable desertion of some progressive Republican voters. In 1924, conservative Benjamin Paulen beat out progressives Clyde Reed and former Governor Walter Stubbs to win the nomination. Paulen went on to win the governorship defeating both the Democrat and William Allen White, who ran as an independent attacking the Ku Klux Klan. Paulen was re-elected easily in 1926. In 1928, Clyde Reed, a progressive, won out in a 6-way primary, with his closest opponent being John D. M. Hamilton, a young conservative war veteran and Speaker of the House.
