| Hubert Humphrey for President 1968 | |
|---|---|
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| Campaign | 1968 U.S. presidential election |
| Candidate | Hubert Humphrey 38th Vice President of the United States (1965–1969) Edmund Muskie U.S. Senator from Maine (1959–1980) |
| Affiliation | Democratic Party |
| Status | Announced: April 27, 1968 Official nominee: August 29, 1968 Lost election: November 5, 1968 |
| Slogan | Some People Talk Change, Others Cause It Humphrey-Muskie, Two You Can Trust[1] |
The 1968 presidential campaign of Hubert Humphrey began when Hubert Humphrey, the 38th and incumbent Vice President of the United States, decided to seek the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States on April 27, 1968, after incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson withdrew his bid for reelection to a second full term on March 31, 1968, and endorsed him as his successor. Johnson withdrew after an unexpectedly strong challenge from anti-Vietnam War presidential candidate, Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, in the early Democratic primaries. McCarthy, along with Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York, became Humphrey's main opponents for the nomination. Their "new politics" contrasted with Humphrey's "old politics" as the increasingly unpopular Vietnam War intensified.
Humphrey entered the race too late to participate in the Democratic primaries. He relied on "favorite son" candidates to win delegates and lobbied for endorsements from powerful bosses to obtain slates of delegates. The other candidates, who strove to win the nomination through popular support, criticized Humphrey's traditional approach. The June 1968 assassination of Robert Kennedy left McCarthy as Humphrey's only major opponent. That changed at the 1968 Democratic National Convention when Senator George McGovern of South Dakota entered the race as the successor of Kennedy. Humphrey won the party's nomination at the convention on the first ballot, amid protests in Chicago. He selected little-known Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine as his running mate. Humphrey was the last nominee who did not participate in the primaries until Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024.
During the general election, Humphrey faced former Vice President Richard Nixon of California, the Republican Party nominee, and Governor of Alabama George Wallace, the American Independent Party nominee. Nixon led in most polls throughout the campaign, and successfully criticized Humphrey's role in the Vietnam War, connecting him to the unpopular president and the general disorder in the nation. Humphrey experienced a surge in the polls in the days prior to the election, largely due to incremental progress in the peace process in Vietnam and a break with the Johnson war policy. On Election Day, Humphrey narrowly fell short of Nixon in the popular vote, but lost, by a large margin, in the Electoral College. Had Humphrey been elected, he would have been the first U.S. president from Minnesota, The first born in South Dakota, and the first incumbent vice president since Martin Van Buren to be elected while Edmund Muskie would have been the second vice president from Maine, after Hannibal Hamlin.