In the primary campaign against Waterfield, Combs attacked the Chandler administration.[30] He was especially critical of a rumor which held that Chandler had placed a two-percent assessment on state employees' salaries and had stored the funds in a Cuban bank so they could not be traced.[30] According to the rumor, when Fidel Castro seized power during the Cuban Revolution, the funds Chandler had deposited in Cuba were lost.[30] Chandler countered on Waterfield's behalf with charges that Combs was a "Clements parrot".[30] Combs succeeded in uniting the anti-Chandler base, and defeated Waterfield by 25,000 votes; he went on to win the governorship that fall, defeating Republican nominee John M. Robsion, Jr. by 180,093 votes.[11] The victory margin was a record for a governor's race in Kentucky, and was the second highest margin of victory for any election in the state, trailing only Franklin D. Roosevelt's 185,858-vote victory over Herbert Hoover in 1932.[11][31] Combs was the first governor elected from Eastern Kentucky since Flem D. Sampson in 1927 and was the first veteran of World War II to hold the office.[2][32]