In his 1970 campaign for governor of Massachusetts, White won a hard-fought multi-candidate Democratic primary election on September 15, 1970, with only 34.33 percent of the vote and by fewer than a two percentage points more than his nearest opponent, Massachusetts Senate President, Maurice A. Donahue.
In 1972, during the Democratic National Convention, White was on the verge of becoming the Democratic Party's vice-presidential nominee [REF].