Lenore was an ex-First Lady by then (since her husband exited the job for HUD Secretary in 1969). What was galling was that a serious candidate, State Sen. Robert Huber, just narrowly lost to her in the primary. Though unlikely he would’ve beaten the popular Phil Hart, he would’ve likely gotten a higher % of the vote (2 years later he was elected to Congress, but was a freshman casualty of Watergate to future Governor Jim Blanchard). Huber ran 3 more times for the Senate (1976, 1982 & 1988, but failed to get the nomination).
Huckster’s wife indeed ran for Sec of State in 2002 for an open seat, but she got less than 38% (which was subpar, but not horrible given that downballot Republicans usually fared about as well or worse — a party switcher in 1994, Julia Hughes Jones, lost by only 5% for the same office. Had she won, she might’ve ended up as Governor or Senator, since only Huckster and the late Win Paul Rockefeller were the sole Republicans to win statewide offices after Frank White in 1980 until 2010).
Frank Keating’s wife ran in OK for Congress and she failed to get the nomination. Same with Jim Gibbons in NV (she wasn’t technically First Lady, but was about to become so). Olympia Snowe was actually the First Lady of Maine for 8 years (1987-1995), but was in Congress the entire time (and in the Senate for the last few days of her reign, I believe). Helen Meyner in NJ served two terms in Congress a dozen years after her husband served as Governor.
Lurleen Wallace, of course, served as a puppet Governor for her husband during her brief reign (1967-68) to get around the one-term law at the time in Alabama. North Dakota’s Wild Bill Langer also ran his wife for Governor, but she lost. Miriam “Ma” Ferguson in TX ran after her husband and she managed to get elected Governor on two different occasions. These were the names I could think of offhand.
It's crazy he was elected again later after his insane stunt.