Despite the popularity of outgoing governor (and 1950 U.S. Senate candidate) Jim Duff and the low approval ratings of President Harry Truman, Democrats came into the election with a cautiously optimistic outlook.

Fine represented the consistency of the long-dominant state political machine and, although he was somewhat more conservative than the outgoing governor, was chosen as Duff's hand-picked successor to hold steady a Republican ship that was on cruise control.

Jay Cooke, a wealthy Philadelphia banker, mobilized the arch-conservative business wing of the party, while Charles Williams, a Lycoming County Common Pleas Judge, led a small but vocal group of anti-machine Republicans.

The Philadelphia Democrat portrayed his opponent as a crony who oversaw a Tammany Hall-style patronage system and asserted that Fine's agenda would "roll back the Twentieth Century."

Although Fine ran well in heavily Republican Central Pennsylvania and limited Dilworth's advantage in the Democratic stronghold of metropolitan Pittsburgh, he lost by a slim margin his home base in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area.