1968 United States presidential election in Mississippi information
Election in Mississippi
Main article: 1968 United States presidential election
1968 United States presidential election in Mississippi
← 1964
November 5, 1968
1972 →
Nominee
George Wallace
Hubert Humphrey
Richard Nixon
Party
Independent
Democratic
Republican
Alliance
American Independent
Home state
Alabama
Minnesota
New York[b]
Running mate
Curtis LeMay[a]
Edmund Muskie
Spiro Agnew
Electoral vote
7
0
0
Popular vote
415,349
150,644
88,516
Percentage
63.46%
23.02%
13.52%
County Results
Congressional District 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
Elections in Mississippi
Federal government
U.S. President
1820
1824
1828
1832
1836
1840
1844
1848
1852
1856
1860
1872
1876
1880
1884
1888
1892
1896
1900
1904
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1912
1916
1920
1924
1928
1932
1936
1940
1944
1948
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1960
1964
1968
1972
1976
1980
1984
1988
1992
1996
2000
Dem
2004
2008
Dem
Rep
2012
Dem
Rep
2016
Dem
Rep
2020
Dem
Rep
2024
Dem
Rep
U.S. Senate
1817
1820
1820 sp
1823
1823
1826 sp
1828
1830 sp
1833 sp
1835
1838
1839 sp
1841
1844
1846 sp
1848 sp
1850
1852 sp
1852 sp
1854 sp
1859
1870
1874
1874 sp
1876
1880
1883
1886
1886 sp
1889
1892
1894 sp
1899
1900
1900 sp
1904
1906
1908
1910 sp
1912
1916
1918
1922
1924
1928
1930
1934
1936
1940
1941 sp
1942
1946
1947 sp
1948
1952
1954
1958
1960
1964
1966
1970
1972
1976
1978
1982
1984
1988
1990
1994
1996
2000
2002
2006
2008
2008 sp
2012
2014
2018
2018 sp
2020
2024
2026
U.S. House
1801
1802
(Terr sp)
1806
1817
1819
1820
1822
1824
1826
At-large sp
1828
At-large sp
1830
1832
1835
1837
1839
1841
1843
1845
1847
1849
1851
1853
1855
1857
1858
5th sp
1859
1865
1868
1869
1872
1874
1876
1878
1880
1882
1884
1886
1888
1890
1892
1894
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1900
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1906
1908
1910
1912
1914
1916
1920
1924
1928
1932
1934
1940
1942
1946
1950
1956
1962
1968
3rd sp
1972
1980
1981
4th sp
1982
1984
1986
1988
1989
5th sp
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2004
2006
2008
1st sp
2010
2012
2014
2015
1st sp
2016
2018
2020
2022
2024
State government
State elections
2003
2007
2011
2015
2019
2020
2023
Gubernatorial elections
1817
1819
1821
1823
1825
1827
1829
1831
1833
1835
1837
1839
1841
1843
1845
1847
1849
1851
1853
1855
1857
1859
1861
1863
1865
1869
1873
1877
1881
1885
1889
1895
1899
1903
1907
1911
1915
1919
1923
1927
1931
1935
1939
1943
1947
1951
1955
1959
1963
1967
1971
1975
1979
1983
1987
1991
1995
1999
2003
2007
2011
2015
2019
2023
2027
State Senate elections
2011
2015
2019
2023
House of Representatives elections
2011
2015
2019
2023
Attorney General elections
2003
2007
2011
2015
2019
2023
Ballot measures
2001
Flag referendum
2004
Amendment 1
2020
Initiative 65
Measure 3
City of Jackson
Mayoral elections
2005
2009
2013
2014
2017
2021
2025
Gulfport
Mayoral elections
2005
2009
2013
2017
2021
2025
Southaven
Mayoral elections
2005
2009
2013
2017
2021
2025
Biloxi
Mayoral elections
2005
2009
2013
2017
2021
2025
Hattiesburg
Mayoral elections
2005
2009
2013
2017
2021
2025
v
t
e
The 1968 United States presidential election in Mississippi was held on November 5, 1968. Mississippi voters chose seven electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, who voted for President and Vice-President. During the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement dictated Mississippi's politics, with effectively the entire white population vehemently opposed to federal policies of racial desegregation and black voting rights.[2][3] In 1960, the state had been narrowly captured by a slate of unpledged Democratic electors,[c] but in 1964 universal white opposition to the Civil Rights Act and negligible black voter registration[d] meant that white Mississippians turned almost unanimously to Republican Barry Goldwater (apart from a small number in the northeast of the state opposed to Goldwater's strong fiscal conservatism).[4] Goldwater's support for "constitutional government and local self-rule"[5] meant that the absence from the ballot of "states' rights" parties or unpledged electors was unimportant. The Arizona Senator was one of only six Republicans to vote against the Civil Rights Act,[6] and so the small electorate of Mississippi supported him almost unanimously.
Following the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, federal examiners registered Mississippi blacks as voters in large numbers: African American registration rose from under seven percent to over fifty-nine percent between mid-1965 and 1968.[7] Extreme anger ensued among white Mississippians, because black voting in significant numbers would threaten the entire social fabric of the Black Belt[8] and was even feared by the few upcountry whites who had stayed loyal to Johnson.[9] The anger of Mississippi's whites was seen in the 1967 Democratic gubernatorial primary, when both Black Belt whites and their traditional foes in the upcountry supported conservative John Bell Williams against William Winter, whom it was believed was favored by the newly registered black voters, although no politician in the state would yet openly court black support.[10]
In addition, the Twenty-Fourth Amendment and resultant abolition of Mississippi's poll tax had allowed large increases in both white and black voter registration,[11] with some of these drives run by white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Consequently, when segregationist former and future Alabama Governor George Wallace announced in early 1968 that he would mount a third-party candidacy for the Presidency, he had a powerful base in the Deep South. Meanwhile, the Republican Party, under new RNC Chairman Ray C. Bliss, had of necessity moved away from the strident conservatism of Goldwater.[12]
Given Wallace's reputation on racial issues, it was inevitable that he would be endorsed by Mississippi's established Democratic Party leadership, and this happened in September.[13] William Winter, the losing candidate for Governor the previous year, did support Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey, but knew that it would be too risky to actively campaign for him.[14] By August, it was widely accepted that Wallace would carry Mississippi by a large margin,[15] as apart from a small number of wealthy urban communities he had captured a virtual monopoly of the state's white electorate. Wallace was the only candidate to campaign in the state;[13] Humphrey won more than twenty percent of the vote in just five of the state's 82 counties. Nixon only received 13% of the vote, making Mississippi his worst state in the election.[16] 83% of white voters supported Wallace, 17% supported Nixon, and 0% supported Humphrey.[17][18][19]
^"General Election November 5, 1968," Mississippi Official and Statistical Register 1968-1972 (Jackson, 1969)
^Crespino, Joseph; In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution, p. 206 ISBN 0691122091
^Mitchell, Dennis J.; A New History of Mississippi; p. 453 ISBN 1617039764
^Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, pp. 208, 210 ISBN 9780691163246
^Katagiri, Yasuhiro; The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission: Civil Rights and States' Rights, p. 203 ISBN 1604730080
^Thernstrom, Stephan and Thernstrom, Abigail; America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible, p. 151 ISBN 1439129096
^Mickey, Robert; Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972, pp. 289-290 ISBN 1400838789
^Phillips; The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 253
^Phillips; The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 264
^Dittmer, John; Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi, p. 417 ISBN 0252065077
^Mickey, Paths out of Dixie, p. 290
^Polsky, Andrew J.; The Eisenhower Presidency: Lessons for the Twenty-First Century, p. 34 ISBN 1498522211
^ abNash, Jere and Taggart, Andy; Mississippi Politics: The Struggle for Power, 1976-2008, p. 29 ISBN 1604733578
^Bolton, Charles C.; William F. Winter and the New Mississippi: A Biography, p. 150 ISBN 1617037877
^Crespino, In Search of Another Country, p. 221
^1968 Presidential General Election Results – Mississippi US Election Atlas
^Black & Black 1992, p. 147.
^Black & Black 1992, p. 295.
^Black & Black 1992, p. 335.
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