With Stephens out of the 1922 general election, Richardson faced Democrat Thomas L. Woolwine, the popular District Attorney of Los Angeles County. Amongst Richardson's supporters in the election were the Ku Klux Klan, (although the California state Republican committee chairman A.E. Boynton repudiated these claims ) which deeply opposed Woolwine's Catholicism, as well as being an organization that was rumored to count Richardson as a member. His campaign manager in the election, California State Assemblyman Frank Merriam, would himself became governor in 1934. In the end, Richardson triumphed in the election, defeating Woolwine by nearly 24 percent of the vote.