Faubus chose not to run for re-election to a seventh term in what would likely have been a difficult race in 1966. Former gubernatorial candidate James D. Johnson, by then an elected Arkansas Supreme Court Justice, narrowly won the Democratic nomination over another justice, the moderate Frank Holt. Johnson was then defeated in the general election by Winthrop Rockefeller, who became the state's first GOP governor since Reconstruction. Years later, Johnson himself became a Republican and supported Governor Frank D. White, later a benefactor of Faubus.