2Q - The Presidential election of 1968 and the reasons for Nixon’s victory: divisions within the Democratic Party
Learn why a divided Democratic Party lost the presidency in 1968, how Nixon assembled a winning coalition, and why his administration combined conservative appeals with practical policy compromises.
Democrats and the crisis of 1968
The Democratic Party entered 1968 with control of the presidency but no agreed answer to the Vietnam War. President Lyndon Johnson defended the war as necessary to contain communism. Anti-war Democrats argued that its human and financial costs were destroying the party’s domestic reform programme. The Tet Offensive in January exposed the gap between official claims of progress and continuing communist resistance, even though American and South Vietnamese forces eventually repelled the attacks.
Senator Eugene McCarthy’s strong performance in the New Hampshire primary demonstrated that opposition could challenge a sitting president within his own party. Robert Kennedy then entered the contest, offering another possible coalition of opponents of the war, minorities and reformers. On 31 March Johnson announced that he would not seek another term. This removed the incumbent but did not remove responsibility for the war from the party.
Vice-President Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic nomination through support from party leaders and delegates without competing in the primaries. His association with Johnson made it difficult to convince anti-war voters that he represented a fresh start. Kennedy’s assassination in June eliminated a major alternative and deepened the sense of national disorder, following Martin Luther King’s murder in April. At the August convention in Chicago, disputes over Vietnam and televised police violence against demonstrators made Democratic division visible to millions.
These events mattered through two mechanisms. They weakened Democratic unity and made Nixon’s promise of order attractive. They also blurred the distinction between a party governing the country and a party protesting against its own government. Nevertheless, Humphrey retained substantial labour and African-American support; a divided party was still capable of a close election.
Nixon’s electoral coalition
Richard Nixon returned to national politics after losing the presidential election in 1960 and the California governorship in 1962. As Eisenhower’s former vice-president he offered experience, especially in foreign affairs. His campaign promised to restore order and achieve peace in Vietnam, while avoiding a precise public timetable that might alienate either hawks or voters tired of war.
Law and order connected different fears: urban riots, violent crime, student protest and a perceived weakening of authority. Some voters understood it chiefly as personal security; others associated it with resistance to civil-rights militancy and racial integration. Its political power came partly from that ambiguity. Nixon did not have to openly endorse segregation to appeal to white voters unsettled by rapid change.
His Southern Strategy sought white southern voters who had traditionally supported Democrats but opposed the national party’s civil-rights direction. Yet the South was contested. George Wallace, the segregationist former Alabama governor, stood for the American Independent Party and appealed to hostility towards federal intervention, racial change and political elites. Wallace won five Deep South states. Nixon therefore did not capture a uniformly Republican South overnight. He also needed suburbs, western states and voters elsewhere who wanted stability.
Nixon chose Maryland governor Spiro Agnew as his running mate. Agnew gave the ticket a forceful critic of disorder, while Nixon projected a more controlled presidential image. Humphrey narrowed the gap late in the campaign after distancing himself from Johnson over bombing policy. The result was competitive: Nixon won about 43.4% of the popular vote against Humphrey’s 42.7%, while Wallace won about 13.5%. Nixon secured 301 electoral votes, Humphrey 191 and Wallace 46. The Electoral College magnified Nixon’s narrow popular lead. National Archives election results, American Presidency Project vote totals.
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