Associate Justice Gallagher was the first sitting member of the Court to lose a reelection bid in 50 years and the 11th overall to be defeated at the ballot box following appointed Associate Justice Greenleaf Clark in 1881, Republican Associate Justices Daniel Dickinson and Charles Vanderburgh in 1892, and Democratic Associated Justices Thomas Canty, William Mitchell, Daniel Buck in 1898, Republican-turned-Democrat John Lovely in 1904, Democrat Thomas O'Brien in 1910, George Bunn in 1912, and Albert Schaller in 1916.
Peterson was an attorney from Minneapolis, former state Representative (HD 36, 1959-1963), and Republican nominee for Lieutenant Governor in 1962.