The Manitoba Cooperative Commonwealth Federation was the primary opposition party in the 1949 provincial election, challenging the coalition government of Liberal-Progressives and Progressive Conservatives.
[1] Gordon was born in Drayton, Ontario, and moved to Selkirk, Manitoba in 1919 to work as a Dominion Bank manager.
Gordon was also secretary-treasurer of the local Credit Union and of the St. Clements Agriculture Society, and was an honorary elder in the United Church.
He first ran for a seat in the Manitoba legislature in the 1949 provincial election, as the CCF candidate in St. Andrews against Progressive Conservative coalitionist James McLenaghen.
McLenaghen died in 1950, and Gordon ran for the CCF a second time in a by-election held on October 24 of that year.