The story
On November 5, 1968, Republican Richard Nixon, the former vice president who had lost in 1960, won the presidency. He took 301 electoral votes and 43.4 percent of the popular vote. Democratic Vice President Hubert Humphrey won 191 electoral votes and 42.7 percent. Former Alabama governor George Wallace, running on the American Independent ticket against desegregation and for 'law and order,' won 13.5 percent and 46 electoral votes from five Southern states.
The election came in one of the most turbulent years in modern American history. The Tet Offensive in January shattered official claims of progress in Vietnam. After Senator Eugene McCarthy nearly beat him in the New Hampshire primary and Robert F. Kennedy entered the race, President Lyndon Johnson announced on March 31 that he would not seek re-election. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April, setting off riots in more than 100 cities, and Kennedy was shot in Los Angeles in June on the night he won the California primary.
Humphrey won the nomination without entering a single primary, at a Chicago convention where police clashed with antiwar protesters on live television. Nixon promised to restore order and to end the war with honor, appealing to voters weary of protest and unrest. Humphrey closed the gap late after breaking with Johnson on bombing, but Nixon held on. The result ended the New Deal era's Democratic dominance of the presidency.
Why it mattered
- Anger over Humphrey's nomination led Democrats to the McGovern-Fraser reforms, creating today's primary-driven nominating system.
- Nixon's presidency brought Vietnamization, the opening to China and, eventually, Watergate.
- Wallace's strong Southern showing, and Nixon's appeals to the same voters, accelerated the South's move toward the Republicans.
- George Wallace remains the last third-party candidate to carry a state in a presidential election.
Sources
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