1968 United States presidential election in Alabama

The 1968 United States presidential election in Alabama was held on November 5, 1968.

1968 United States presidential election in Alabama

November 5, 1968
All 10 Alabama electoral votes to the Electoral College
Nominee George Wallace Hubert Humphrey Richard Nixon Party American Independent Democratic Republican Home state Alabama Minnesota New York[lower-alpha 1] Running mate Curtis LeMay Edmund Muskie Spiro Agnew Electoral vote 10 0 0 Popular vote 691,425 196,597 146,923 Percentage 65.9% 18.7% 14.0%
County Results Wallace   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%   80–90%   90–100% Humphrey   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%
President before election Lyndon B. Johnson Democratic Elected President Richard Nixon Republican

Southern segregationist candidate George Wallace, the former Governor of Alabama running as a third party candidate with his American Independent Party, won his home state in a landslide. Wallace received the official Democratic Party ballot line in Alabama, while national Democratic Party nominee Hubert Humphrey was forced to run on a fusion ticket of "Alabama Independent Democrat" and the National Democratic party ballot line.[1]

Wallace won 65.86% to Democrat Hubert Humphrey's 18.72%, a 47.13% margin. Republican Richard Nixon, while narrowly winning the election nationally, finished a distant third in Alabama with only 13.99%, receiving significant support only in a few northern counties with historically significant GOP votes, and in higher-income urban areas.[2] Wallace's 65.86% of the popular vote would make Alabama not only his best performing state in the 1968 election, but the strongest performing state out of any candidate, with only Washington DC being stronger.[3]

Wallace won 64 of the state's 67 counties. As African-Americans in the South were slowly gaining the right to vote as a result of federal civil rights legislation passed in 1964 and 1965, Wallace's weakest region was Alabama’s Black Belt, where he won most counties with narrow majorities or pluralities.[4] He lost three counties in this region, Sumter County, Greene County, and Macon County, all with majority black populations, to pro-civil rights candidate Hubert Humphrey. In black-majority Macon County, pro-civil rights Democrat Hubert Humphrey won a commanding landslide, taking 69.7% of the vote to Wallace's 25.4%, reflecting the deep divide between the state's white and black voter populations. As of the 2020 presidential election, this is the last election in which Mobile County, Shelby County, Baldwin County, Lee County, and Houston County were not carried by the Republican candidate,[5] the last election in which the Republican candidate won the election without Alabama and the last election in which Wilcox County, Lowndes County, and Bullock County were not carried by the national Democratic candidate.[5]

Results

1968 United States presidential election in Alabama[1]

Party	Nominee	Popular vote	Percentage	Electoral vote
Democratic (American Independent)	George Wallace	691,425	65.86%	10
Alabama Independent Democrat/ National Democratic (Democratic)	Hubert Humphrey	196,597	18.72%	0
Republican	Richard Nixon	146,923	13.99%	0
American Independent	No Candidate	10,960	1.04%	0
Prohibition	E. Harold Munn	4,002	0.38%	0
Write-ins	—	8	0.00%	0

Results by county

County	George Wallace Democratic		Richard Nixon Republican		Hubert Humphrey Alabama Independent Democrat		Various candidates Other parties		Margin[lower-alpha 2]		Total votes cast[6]
	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%
Autauga	5,523	71.03%	606	7.79%	1,553	19.97%	94	1.21%	3,970	51.06%	7,776
Baldwin	14,167	76.98%	2,154	11.70%	1,821	9.89%	262	1.42%	12,013[lower-alpha 3]	65.28%	18,404
Barbour	5,491	69.10%	386	4.86%	1,898	23.89%	171	2.15%	3,593	45.21%	7,946
Bibb	3,746	80.16%	263	5.63%	652	13.95%	12	0.26%	3,094	66.21%	4,673
Blount	6,536	71.93%	2,013	22.15%	331	3.64%	206	2.27%	4,523[lower-alpha 3]	49.78%	9,086
Bullock	2,161	49.71%	190	4.37%	1,964	45.18%	32	0.74%	197	4.53%	4,347
Butler	5,601	76.09%	500	6.79%	1,240	16.85%	20	0.27%	4,361	59.24%	7,361
Calhoun	19,211	71.75%	3,061	11.43%	4,146	15.48%	357	1.33%	15,065	56.27%	26,775
Chambers	7,885	74.14%	1,082	10.17%	1,358	12.77%	311	2.92%	6,527	61.37%	10,636
Cherokee	4,773	83.96%	343	6.03%	462	8.13%	107	1.88%	4,311	75.83%	5,685
Chilton	6,611	74.26%	1,602	18.00%	566	6.36%	123	1.38%	5,009[lower-alpha 3]	56.26%	8,902
Choctaw	4,250	69.75%	176	2.89%	1,641	26.93%	26	0.43%	2,609	42.82%	6,093
Clarke	6,168	71.50%	488	5.66%	1,717	19.90%	253	2.93%	4,451	51.60%	8,626
Clay	4,048	80.25%	706	14.00%	256	5.08%	34	0.67%	3,342[lower-alpha 3]	66.25%	5,044
Cleburne	3,314	82.95%	485	12.14%	160	4.01%	36	0.90%	2,829[lower-alpha 3]	70.81%	3,995
Coffee	8,885	82.53%	682	6.33%	1,071	9.95%	128	1.19%	7,814	72.58%	10,766
Colbert	11,341	72.60%	1,727	11.06%	2,291	14.67%	262	1.68%	9,050	57.93%	15,621
Conecuh	3,828	71.60%	186	3.48%	1,151	21.53%	181	3.39%	2,677	50.07%	5,346
Coosa	2,830	74.26%	330	8.66%	623	16.35%	28	0.73%	2,207	57.91%	3,811
Covington	11,419	86.98%	831	6.33%	791	6.03%	87	0.66%	10,588[lower-alpha 3]	80.65%	13,128
Crenshaw	4,513	82.35%	209	3.81%	726	13.25%	32	0.58%	3,787	69.10%	5,480
Cullman	11,063	64.08%	4,964	28.75%	1,115	6.46%	123	0.71%	6,099[lower-alpha 3]	35.33%	17,265
Dale	8,109	83.55%	607	6.25%	862	8.88%	127	1.31%	7,247	74.67%	9,705
Dallas	8,798	52.89%	1,246	7.49%	6,516	39.17%	76	0.46%	2,282	13.72%	16,636
DeKalb	8,144	54.81%	5,314	35.76%	1,274	8.57%	127	0.85%	2,830[lower-alpha 3]	19.05%	14,859
Elmore	9,038	76.52%	801	6.78%	1,745	14.77%	228	1.93%	7,293	61.75%	11,812
Escambia	8,474	78.72%	680	6.32%	1,492	13.86%	119	1.11%	6,982	64.86%	10,765
Etowah	21,416	68.67%	4,351	13.95%	4,613	14.79%	806	2.58%	16,803	53.88%	31,186
Fayette	4,683	75.07%	827	13.26%	676	10.84%	52	0.83%	3,856[lower-alpha 3]	61.81%	6,238
Franklin	5,909	64.96%	2,524	27.75%	588	6.46%	75	0.82%	3,385[lower-alpha 3]	37.21%	9,096
Geneva	7,871	91.73%	284	3.31%	380	4.43%	46	0.54%	7,491	87.30%	8,581
Greene	1,555	39.18%	180	4.54%	2,229	56.16%	5	0.13%	-674	-16.98%	3,969
Hale	2,934	55.78%	266	5.06%	2,003	38.08%	57	1.08%	931	17.70%	5,260
Henry	4,233	79.99%	84	1.59%	955	18.05%	20	0.38%	3,278	61.94%	5,292
Houston	13,872	83.89%	974	5.89%	1,488	9.00%	202	1.22%	12,384	74.89%	16,536
Jackson	8,504	77.96%	1,191	10.92%	1,022	9.37%	191	1.75%	7,313[lower-alpha 3]	67.04%	10,908
Jefferson	106,233	51.81%	39,752	19.39%	55,845	27.24%	3,203	1.56%	50,388	24.57%	205,033
Lamar	5,229	88.25%	364	6.14%	302	5.10%	30	0.51%	4,865[lower-alpha 3]	82.11%	5,925
Lauderdale	13,467	71.32%	2,952	15.63%	2,166	11.47%	298	1.58%	10,515[lower-alpha 3]	55.69%	18,883
Lawrence	6,253	83.05%	580	7.70%	650	8.63%	46	0.61%	5,603	74.42%	7,529
Lee	7,721	58.78%	2,366	18.01%	2,803	21.34%	246	1.87%	4,918	37.44%	13,136
Limestone	8,430	81.25%	870	8.39%	889	8.57%	186	1.79%	7,541	72.68%	10,375
Lowndes	1,822	55.84%	234	7.17%	1,127	34.54%	80	2.45%	695	21.30%	3,263
Macon	1,619	25.37%	257	4.03%	4,450	69.74%	55	0.86%	-2,831	-44.37%	6,381
Madison	29,823	57.40%	13,213	25.43%	8,004	15.41%	913	1.76%	16,610[lower-alpha 3]	31.97%	51,953
Marengo	5,185	56.64%	457	4.99%	3,479	38.01%	33	0.36%	1,706	18.63%	9,154
Marion	6,415	76.34%	1,492	17.76%	365	4.34%	131	1.56%	4,923[lower-alpha 3]	58.58%	8,403
Marshall	12,742	76.39%	2,725	16.34%	955	5.73%	258	1.55%	10,017[lower-alpha 3]	60.05%	16,680
Mobile	61,673	67.08%	10,509	11.43%	18,615	20.25%	1,139	1.24%	43,058	46.83%	91,936
Monroe	5,217	71.23%	375	5.12%	1,673	22.84%	59	0.81%	3,544	48.39%	7,324
Montgomery	27,202	58.47%	6,746	14.50%	12,088	25.98%	489	1.05%	15,114	32.49%	46,525
Morgan	16,841	75.60%	3,043	13.66%	1,878	8.43%	515	2.31%	13,798[lower-alpha 3]	61.94%	22,277
Perry	2,768	49.85%	308	5.55%	2,457	44.25%	20	0.36%	311	5.60%	5,553
Pickens	4,549	71.89%	321	5.07%	1,434	22.66%	24	0.38%	3,115	49.23%	6,328
Pike	6,038	72.39%	658	7.89%	1,565	18.76%	80	0.96%	4,473	53.63%	8,341
Randolph	5,103	75.00%	839	12.33%	666	9.79%	196	2.88%	4,264[lower-alpha 3]	62.67%	6,804
Russell	7,584	67.44%	704	6.26%	2,707	24.07%	250	2.22%	4,877	43.37%	11,245
St. Clair	7,050	72.70%	1,635	16.86%	869	8.96%	143	1.47%	5,415[lower-alpha 3]	55.84%	9,697
Shelby	7,736	71.83%	1,706	15.84%	1,105	10.26%	223	2.07%	6,030[lower-alpha 3]	55.99%	10,770
Sumter	2,158	44.89%	303	6.30%	2,336	48.60%	10	0.21%	-178	-3.71%	4,807
Talladega	13,505	72.00%	1,935	10.32%	3,099	16.52%	217	1.16%	10,406	55.48%	18,756
Tallapoosa	9,043	76.50%	1,205	10.19%	1,331	11.26%	242	2.05%	7,712	65.24%	11,821
Tuscaloosa	18,611	65.60%	3,822	13.47%	5,556	19.58%	382	1.35%	13,055	46.02%	28,371
Walker	14,416	74.37%	2,628	13.56%	1,971	10.17%	370	1.91%	11,788[lower-alpha 3]	60.81%	19,385
Washington	4,545	79.98%	200	3.52%	902	15.87%	36	0.63%	3,643	64.11%	5,683
Wilcox	2,511	56.62%	237	5.34%	1,658	37.38%	29	0.65%	853	19.24%	4,435
Winston	3,032	54.86%	2,174	39.33%	258	4.67%	63	1.14%	858[lower-alpha 3]	15.53%	5,527
Totals	691,425	65.86%	146,923	13.99%	196,579	18.72%	14,982	1.43%	494,846	47.14%	1,049,909

Notes

1. Although he was born in California and he served as a U.S. Senator from California, in 1968 Richard Nixon's official state of residence was New York, because he moved there to practice law after his defeat in the 1962 California gubernatorial election. During his first term as president, Nixon re-established his residency in California. Consequently, most reliable reference books list Nixon's home state as New York in the 1968 election and his home state as California in the 1972 (and 1960) election.
2. Because Wallace was listed as the “Democratic” nominee in Alabama and carried the state, whilst Humphrey ran second, all margins given are Wallace vote minus Humphrey vote and percentage margins Wallace percentage minus Humphrey percentage unless noted otherwise.
3. In this county where Nixon rather than Humphrey ran second behind Wallace, margin given is Wallace vote minus Nixon vote and percentage margin Wallace percentage minus Nixon percentage.

References

1. "1968 Presidential General Election Results – Alabama". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved 2014-09-02.
2. Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 227 ISBN 9780691163246.
3. "1968 Presidential Election Statistics". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved 2018-03-05.
4. Phillips; The Emerging Republican Majority; p. 258.
5. Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, pp. 146–147 ISBN 0786422173.
6. State of Alabama Department of Archives and History, ‘General Election November 5, 1968’, Alabama Official and Statistical Register 1971.

See also