In later years both, Poff and Dalton were mentioned as potential nominees to the Supreme Court of the United States, and Turk later became a federal judge as well.

His running mates in that election were both lawyers: Stephen Timberlake of Staunton as the candidate for lieutenant governor and Walter Edward Hoffman of Norfolk (another future federal judge) for Attorney General.

"[2] School desegregation seemed the major issue in the 1957 election (in the wake of the 1954 and 1955 decisions in Brown v. Board of Education), and Dalton lost badly to Democrat J. Lindsay Almond.

By 1956, Byrd Democrats including Almond had responded with "Massive Resistance", vowing to close schools to avoid integration.

[3] Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and efforts by the federal government to enforce desegregation in Little Rock Central High School were used against Republicans, and led to the widened margin of defeat for Dalton in his second statewide campaign.

Dalton had criticized the Brown decisions, and proposed a pupil placement plan that would allow most schools to remain segregated "for maybe a hundred years.

[1] Along with his colleagues, Dalton as federal judge presided over litigation that continued into the 1970s to implement the Brown decision in Virginia's public schools.

[citation needed] Their next-door neighbor in Radford was Charlotte Giesen, who became the first Republican woman elected to the House of Delegates in 1957.

[citation needed] Dalton's personal papers are held by the Special Collections Research Center at the College of William & Mary.