Frank D. White - Losing in 1982 and 1986

Losing in 1982 and 1986

White was unable to secure a hold on the governorship. Chrisman challenged him again in the 1982 primary. Future U.S President Bill Clinton then defeated him in the general election: 431,855 (54.7 percent) to 357,496 (45.3 percent). White won only nineteen counties in the 1982 rematch, which occurred in a nationally Democratic year.

After his defeat, White supported the selection of a former Rockefeller supporter, Morris S. Arnold, a law professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, to succeed the temporary state party Chairman Robert "Bob" Cohee, originally of Baxter County. Cohee had become acting chairman on the death of Holleman in March 1982 and had resigned a federal position to work all year for White's unsuccessful reelection. Arnold defeated Cohee, but the Republican State Central Committee would not disclose the secret-ballot vote. Arnold did not serve the full two-year term and was succeeded by first vice-chairman Robert "Bob" Leslie.

Arkansas gubernatorial terms became four years with the 1986 general election. In 1986, Faubus unsuccessfully challenged Clinton for Democratic renomination. White defeated former Lieutenant Governor Maurice L. Britt in the Republican primary. In the third White v. Clinton race, Clinton again easily prevailed, once again having benefited from a nationally Democratic year. White's loss in this election dramatically damaged his political image, making it very unlikely that he could win the governorship again.

He returned to First Commercial Bank in Little Rock after his 1986 defeat as a business development executive until his retirement from the bank in 1998. White declined to seek the Republican nomination for Governor again in 1990, opting to support Sheffield Nelson in his primary race against Representative Tommy Robinson instead of running himself. That year, Clinton won election as Governor for the fifth time; two years later he would become President of the United States. Without sufficient support and resources to run for elected office again, White left elective politics, but remained active in Republican affairs. He was appointed by Governor Mike Huckabee in 1998 as State Banking Commissioner on what was supposed to be a "temporary" basis; he remained in the post until shortly before his death from a heart attack in 2003, about two weeks before his seventieth birthday.White's time in the Banking Department was noted by his practice of visiting all Arkansas' state-chartered banks at least once a year.