"Judge W. P. Campbell has withdrawn as a candidate for re-election in the Thirteenth district. Almost every newspaper in the district opposed his candidacy for the Republican nomination, and did so with unusual energy and bitterness. Campbell withdrew because he saw that his nomination was impossible."
Howard Courant, July 22, 1880, quoting the Fredonia Citizen
The newspaper charge against Campbell's 1880 reelection was led by the Winfield Courier, formerly the Elk Falls Examiner. Campbell had fined two editors ($200) of the Courier and one editor of another Winfield newspaper for negative editorials commenting on one of the trials he presided over in Cowley County. The case was subsequently overturned in the Kansas Supreme Court.
Another of Campbell's questionable decisions in late 1873 directly led to the outbreak of the Howard County Boston War and the raid on the town of Elk Falls by the town of Boston.