The 1918 Grand Council elections took place in February 1918, for the purpose of choosing the Sixteenth Grand Council of the Confederation of North America.
Incumbent Governor-General Albert Merriman chose not to run for a third term. Instead, he threw his support behind Councilman Calvin Wagner of Indiana, and his popularity within the People's Coalition was sufficient to gain Wagner the party's nomination for governor-general.
In the early months of 1915, there was considerable support within the Liberal Party for Howard Washburne, the former Governor of Southern Vandalia and head of the Friends of Black Mexico. It may be that the F.B.M.'s role in the Chapultepec Incident of January 1916 caused second thoughts among the Liberal leadership, because the Liberal candidate for governor-general was Chester Phipps, the Governor of the Southern Confederation.
During the campaign, Phipps argued that the election of a Coalition majority would mean "more of the same," presumably hoping that the North American electorate had grown tired of the Coalition's policies of government-subsidized businesses and isolationism. Rather than attempting to refute Phipps' accusation, Wagner embraced it, saying, "If by more of the same, Governor Phipps means still greater prosperity and continued peace and tranquility, then I plead guilty to that desire."
On election day, the Wagner-led P.C. had no trouble defeating the Liberals. However, Sobel does not provide confederation-level election results, or even indicate the relative sizes of the party caucuses in the Grand Council.
(This post has been revised to reflect recent changes in the Sobel Wiki article.)
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