Republican Governor Robert P. Robinson declined to seek a second term so C. Douglass Buck, the Chief Engineer of the State Highway Department, was seen as the likely frontrunner heading into the Republican convention.

[2] On the Democratic side, former State Senator Charles Wharton, a well-known football player on the Penn Quakers team at the University of Pennsylvania, emerged as the frontrunner.

[3] Wharton was seen as a strong candidate by the Democratic establishment and won the nomination unopposed.

Republican presidential nominee Herbert Hoover won the state in a record-breaking landslide and helped Buck across the finish line.

Though Buck underperformed Hoover, he still won handily, winning 61% of the vote to Wharton's 39%.