Labour government, 1974–1979
In March 1976, having just turned sixty years old, Wilson resigned as Prime Minister, ending his leadership of the Labour Party after thirteen years, and a total of nearly eight years as Prime Minister. He was replaced by James Callaghan, who had held senior government positions during both of Wilson's ministries, and had served as a Shadow Cabinet member in the early-1960s.
Will Wilson
Wilson did not seek a fourth two-year term as attorney general in 1962; instead he entered the Democratic gubernatorial primary against several prominent opponents, including incumbent Governor Marion Price Daniel, Sr. of Liberty, highway commissioner Marshall Formby of Plainview, General Edwin A. Walker, who made anticommunism the centerpiece of his campaign, and the leading candidates, former U.S. Secretary of the Navy John Connally of Floresville, and liberal attorney Don Yarborough of Houston (no relation to his fellow liberal U.S. Senator Ralph W. Yarborough of Austin). In the campaign, Wilson was particularly critical of a politician not on the ballot: Lyndon Johnson. Wilson declared that Johnson had engineered Connally's candidacy because the vice president feared a Republican victory in Texas in 1962. According to Wilson, Johnson was engaged in "a move ... to oust Price Daniel, oust me, oust Senator Ralph Yarborough and gain complete control of the state government."