Although favored to win his party's nomination in 1926, despite it being a three candidate race with his former client and current Governor Gifford Pinchot, Philadelphia political boss William Vare, running on an anti-Prohibition platform, defeated Pepper (who had carried 62 of the state's counties, with Pinchot running a distant third) in the 1926 primary. The Senate subsequently refused to seat Vare over allegations of overspending and fraud concerning the 1926 primary and general elections. Newly elected Governor John Stuchell Fisher appointed his political ally Joseph Grundy to fill the vacancy, and Pepper returned to his private law practice.