The 1973 Virginia lieutenant gubernatorial election was held on November 6, 1973. Republican nominee John N. Dalton defeated Democratic nominee James Harry Michael Jr. with 53.96 percent of the vote. This was the last time until 1997 that a Republican was elected lieutenant governor of Virginia.
Following the death from a brain tumor of J. Sargeant Reynolds, universally viewed as favorite to be Democratic gubernatorial nominee for 1973, the lieutenant gubernatorial seat went in a 1971 special election to the fiery populist independent Henry Evans Howell, who had lost the Democratic gubernatorial primary in 1969 and did not believe himself likely to win the party nomination again. Howell, however, was always seeking the governor's office for 1973, against the opposition of former Democratic governor Mills Godwin and the old-line business and political establishment, already extremely worried by his win in the 1971 lieutenant gubernatorial special election.
The race to oppose the sitting lieutenant governor became so divisive that the Democratic Party eventually did not nominate a candidate for Governor, instead supporting Howell's independent run. Fifty-four-year-old State Senator James Harry Michael of Charlottesville was established as the only Democratic lieutenant gubernatorial candidate in early April, and was fully confirmed as the nominee mid-month. Michael, a moderate, would refuse to endorse either Howell or his archenemy Godwin, who would confirm his shift to the Republican Party in June.
The Republican nomination was early on a race between John Dalton, nephew and adopted son of 1953 and 1957 gubernatorial nominee Theodore of the mountain-valley Holton faction, and forces led by the much more conservative Richard Obershain of Richmond. After a week, Obershain announced he would not run, and Dalton thus emerged as the favorite against Delegate Herbert Morgan of Arlington. He would easily win the nominee in a convention during the second week of June.
An independent nominee, long-time lobbyist and journalist Flora Crater of Falls Church, would declare in April and be confirmed by June. A strongly liberal former Democrat and a delegate to the previous year's party convention, Crater said she entered when Virginia failed to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.
All three candidates kept their campaigns separate from the concurrent gubernatorial battle. Dalton campaigned solidly from July, and was a clear favorite early on, although by September polls saw Michael catching up. The lack of major issues for the campaign, however, handicapped Michael, as did the fact that there was no party man at the top of the ticket. Efforts by Michael to campaign upon his support for news sales tax exemptions on food and medicine, and on his ability to work with any Governor, did not substantially effect polling. Crater, supported mainly by the Virginia Women's Political Caucus, ran a low-budget campaign that attracted considerable attention due to her positions on controversial issues such as public financing of state campaigns, negotiated wages for Virginia teachers, the ERA and her support for a master plan for land use in the state.
As generally expected in the months preceding the election, Dalton won a convincing victory by 18.43 percentage points, sufficient that he would have won clearly without the Crater candidacy that was expected to hurt Michael. Dalton carried all except twenty-one counties and all except four cities, including longtime Democratic strongholds like Norfolk, Portsmouth and Richmond, whilst Michael's strength was largely confined to his home area around Charlottesville and a few coal counties in the southwest. Crater won about twice the generally predicted vote percentage, doing best in her Northern Virginia home and in the Tidewater, where she ran second ahead of Michael in Williamsburg.