U.S. presidential election, 1968

Presidential Candidate	Electoral Vote	Popular Vote	Pct	Party	Running Mate (Electoral Votes)
Richard M. Nixon of New York (W)	301	31,710,470	43.2%	Republican	Spiro Agnew of Maryland (301)
Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota	191	30,898,055	42.6%	Democrat	Edmund Muskie of Maine (191)
George Wallace of Alabama	46	9,906,473	12.9%	American Independent	Curtis E. LeMay of Ohio (46)
Other	0	972,139	1.3%
Total	538	73,026,831	100.0%
Other elections: 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980
Source: U.S. Office of the Federal Register

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The 1968 presidential election was a wrenching national experience, and included the assassination of liberal Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy, the brutal Chicago [police riot] at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, as well as widespread demonstrations against the Vietnam War across American university and college campuses. In the end, and ironically given the Watergate break-in,Richard M. Nixon would win the election on a campaign of "law and order". It is sometimes considered to be a realigning election.

Table of contents

1 Democratic Primary
2 Republican Primary
3 Third parties
4 The election

Democratic Primary

Most Democratic candidates were hesitant to officially enter the race in 1968, given that Democrat Lyndon Johnson was the incumbent president, and had won the 1964 election in a landslide. However, the Vietnam War had become an enormous burden for the Johnson administration, both as a political liability and on the energies of Johnson himself. Senator Eugene McCarthy saw this as an opening, and ran for the Democratic nomination as an anti-war candidate, and achieved early success with a surprisingly strong second place finish in the New Hampshire Primary. On March 31, 1968, Johnson announced he would not seek re-election.

Johnson's exit from the race opened the door for a large field of Democratic contenders. Shortly after Johnson's announcement, Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey announced their candidacies.

While Kennedy was successful in the primaries (in which Humphrey, for the most part, did not compete), thanks to the large role still played in the nominating process by delegate votes controlled by party bosses, the nominee still remained unclear, even after Kennedy defeated McCarthy in the crucial California primary on June 5. That night, Kennedy was shot shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968 by Sirhan Sirhan. He died the next day, on June 6.

Kennedy's death altered the dynamics of the race, and threw the Democratic party into disarray. Although Humphrey appeared the prohibitive favorite for the nomination, thanks to his support from the institutional structures of the party, he was an unpopular choice with many of the more anti-war elements within the party, who identified him with Johnson's position on the Vietnam War. The nation was shocked by television footage of Chicago police brutally beating anti-war protesters in the streets of Chicago while the convention went on inside (itself marred by the strongarming tactics of Chicago's mayor Richard J. Daley, who was seen on TV angrily mouthing anti-semitic epithets at Senator Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut, who made a speech at the convention denouncing the excesses of the Chicago police. In the end, the nomination itself was anticlimactic, with Vice President Humphrey easily winning the nomination over McCarthy and Senator George McGovern (who acted as a stand-in for many of the Kennedy delegates), even though he had not run in a single primary election during the campaign.

Republican Primary

The Republican Primary was relatively uneventful. Richard M. Nixon had made a comeback, and had devised a "southern strategy", which was designed to appeal to the southern voters, who traditionally voted Democratic but who were becoming disillusioned with the changing politics of the Democratic party. He handily won the Republican nomination, easily beating back tentative challenges from New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and Governor Ronald Reagan of California.

Third parties

The American Independent Party was formed by George Wallace, whose pro-segregation policies had been rejected by the mainstream of the Democratic party. The impact of the Wallace campaign was substantial, winning the electoral votes of several states in the deep South. More disturbing, perhaps, was Wallace's surprisingly strong showing in several northern states. Although Wallace did not expect to win the election, his strategy was that he might be able to prevent either major party candidate from winning a preliminary majority in the Electoral College, which would then give him bargaining power to determine the outcome.

The election

The election was held on November 5, 1968 and in the end, the race was very close. During the campaign, Nixon claimed to have a "secret plan" to end the war. In the final days of the election, much was riding on the success or failure of the Paris Peace Talks with the North Vietnamese. The war became the central issue of the campaign, with Humphrey hounded by antiwar protesters whenever he made public appearances. Late in the campaign Humphrey, who seemed destined to lose by a large margin, began to distance himself from the Johnson administration on the Vietnam War, calling for a bombing halt. He began to gain traction, especially when President Johnson actually announced a bombing halt, and even a possible peace deal, shortly before the election. Ultimately, the election was considerably closer than anyone had expected, particularly in the popular vote, but Nixon won the electoral vote by a comfortable margin.