1968 United States presidential election in Mississippi

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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%
President before election

Lyndon B. Johnson
Democratic

Elected President

Richard Nixon
Republican

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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]

Predictions[edit]

The following newspapers gave these predictions about how Mississippi would vote in the 1968 presidential election:

Source Ranking As of
Fort Worth Star-Telegram[20] Safe I (Flip) September 14, 1968
Pensacola News Journal[21] Safe I (Flip) September 23, 1968
Daily Press[22] Certain I (flip) October 11, 1968
The Charlotte News[23] Certain I (Flip) October 12, 1968
The Record[24] Likely I (Flip) October 21, 1968
Shreveport Times[25] Safe I (Flip) November 3, 1968
The Selma Times-Journal[26] Safe I (Flip) November 3, 1968
Fort Lauderdale News[27] Safe I (Flip) November 4, 1968

Results[edit]

1968 United States presidential election in Mississippi[16]
Party Candidate Votes Percentage Electoral votes
American Independent George C. Wallace 415,349 63.46% 7
Democratic Hubert Humphrey 150,644 23.02% 0
Republican Richard Nixon 88,516 13.52% 0
Totals 654,509 100.00% 7
Voter turnout (Voting age/Registered voters) 53%/84%

Results by county[edit]

County George Wallace
American Independent 		Hubert Humphrey
Democratic 		Richard Nixon
Republican 		Margin Total votes cast
# % # % # % # %
Adams 6,812 50.46% 5,214 38.62% 1,475 10.93% 1,598 11.84% 13,501
Alcorn 6,304 68.63% 1,122 12.21% 1,760 19.16% 4,544[e] 49.47% 9,186
Amite 3,206 62.47% 1,533 29.87% 393 7.66% 1,673 32.60% 5,132
Attala 4,776 68.59% 1,588 22.81% 599 8.60% 3,188 45.78% 6,963
Benton 1,630 61.16% 850 31.89% 185 6.94% 780 29.27% 2,665
Bolivar 5,018 43.62% 4,696 40.82% 1,790 15.56% 322 2.80% 11,504
Calhoun 4,823 87.80% 276 5.02% 394 7.17% 4,429[e] 80.63% 5,493
Carroll 2,131 66.72% 925 28.96% 138 4.32% 1,206 37.76% 3,194
Chickasaw 4,062 78.68% 720 13.95% 381 7.38% 3,342 64.73% 5,163
Choctaw 2,543 80.20% 417 13.15% 211 6.65% 2,126 67.05% 3,171
Claiborne 1,143 32.64% 2,129 60.79% 230 6.57% -986 -28.15% 3,502
Clarke 4,214 78.18% 878 16.29% 298 5.53% 3,336 61.89% 5,390
Clay 3,505 63.62% 1,510 27.41% 494 8.97% 1,995 36.21% 5,509
Coahoma 3,671 33.69% 5,352 49.11% 1,875 17.20% -1,681 -15.42% 10,898
Copiah 4,951 59.09% 2,724 32.51% 704 8.40% 2,227 26.58% 8,379
Covington 3,668 76.35% 691 14.38% 445 9.26% 2,977 61.97% 4,804
DeSoto 5,346 64.13% 1,898 22.77% 1,092 13.10% 3,448 41.36% 8,336
Forrest 9,975 61.48% 2,957 18.22% 3,294 20.30% 6,681[e] 41.18% 16,226
Franklin 2,429 70.57% 782 22.72% 231 6.71% 1,647 47.85% 3,442
George 3,992 91.20% 214 4.89% 171 3.91% 3,778 86.31% 4,377
Greene 2,744 82.53% 449 13.50% 132 3.97% 2,295 69.03% 3,325
Grenada 4,335 61.03% 2,050 28.86% 718 10.11% 2,285 32.17% 7,103
Hancock 4,072 67.41% 904 14.96% 1,065 17.63% 3,007[e] 49.78% 6,041
Harrison 18,157 62.08% 4,549 15.55% 6,542 22.37% 11,615[e] 39.71% 29,248
Hinds 32,366 53.29% 14,880 24.50% 13,488 22.21% 17,486 28.79% 60,734
Holmes 3,008 40.60% 3,881 52.38% 520 7.02% -873 -11.78% 7,409
Humphreys 2,151 59.29% 1,219 33.60% 258 7.11% 932 25.69% 3,628
Issaquena 534 48.33% 527 47.69% 44 3.98% 7 0.64% 1,105
Itawamba 5,204 84.07% 417 6.74% 569 9.19% 4,635[e] 74.88% 6,190
Jackson 15,261 74.67% 2,236 10.94% 2,942 14.39% 12,319[e] 60.28% 20,439
Jasper 3,100 69.51% 987 22.13% 373 8.36% 2,113 47.38% 4,460
Jefferson 1,112 32.90% 2,121 62.75% 147 4.35% -1,009 -29.85% 3,380
Jefferson Davis 2,614 59.73% 1,465 33.48% 297 6.79% 1,149 26.25% 4,376
Jones 12,276 68.22% 2,476 13.76% 3,242 18.02% 9,034[e] 50.20% 17,994
Kemper 2,530 75.48% 655 19.54% 167 4.98% 1,875 55.94% 3,352
Lafayette 3,329 54.20% 1,578 25.69% 1,235 20.11% 1,751 28.51% 6,142
Lamar 4,422 83.14% 351 6.60% 546 10.27% 3,876[e] 72.87% 5,319
Lauderdale 14,842 72.88% 3,195 15.69% 2,328 11.43% 11,647 57.19% 20,365
Lawrence 2,825 72.55% 740 19.00% 329 8.45% 2,085 53.55% 3,894
Leake 4,568 72.32% 1,295 20.50% 453 7.17% 3,273 51.82% 6,316
Lee 9,232 67.55% 1,912 13.99% 2,522 18.45% 6,710[e] 49.10% 13,666
Leflore 5,732 49.28% 4,386 37.71% 1,514 13.02% 1,346 11.57% 11,632
Lincoln 7,276 73.36% 1,585 15.98% 1,057 10.66% 5,691 57.38% 9,918
Lowndes 6,829 61.94% 2,229 20.22% 1,968 17.85% 4,600 41.72% 11,026
Madison 4,071 43.02% 4,515 47.72% 876 9.26% -444 -4.70% 9,462
Marion 5,848 70.18% 1,722 20.66% 763 9.16% 4,126 49.52% 8,333
Marshall 2,794 44.50% 2,907 46.30% 577 9.19% -113 -1.80% 6,278
Monroe 7,856 74.61% 1,506 14.30% 1,167 11.08% 6,350 60.31% 10,529
Montgomery 2,988 68.55% 896 20.56% 475 10.90% 2,092 47.99% 4,359
Neshoba 6,417 82.11% 867 11.09% 531 6.79% 5,550 71.02% 7,815
Newton 5,561 80.57% 799 11.58% 542 7.85% 4,762 68.99% 6,902
Noxubee 2,040 55.75% 1,387 37.91% 232 6.34% 653 17.84% 3,659
Oktibbeha 4,127 57.09% 1,826 25.26% 1,276 17.65% 2,301 31.83% 7,229
Panola 4,133 51.83% 2,743 34.40% 1,098 13.77% 1,390 17.43% 7,974
Pearl River 6,050 73.12% 926 11.19% 1,298 15.69% 4,752[e] 57.43% 8,274
Perry 2,541 79.23% 439 13.69% 227 7.08% 2,102 65.54% 3,207
Pike 5,846 57.57% 2,848 28.05% 1,460 14.38% 2,998 29.52% 10,154
Pontotoc 4,798 78.27% 599 9.77% 733 11.96% 4,065[e] 66.31% 6,130
Prentiss 5,055 81.30% 440 7.08% 723 11.63% 4,332[e] 69.67% 6,218
Quitman 2,443 55.79% 1,502 34.30% 434 9.91% 941 21.49% 4,379
Rankin 9,224 74.85% 1,975 16.03% 1,124 9.12% 7,249 58.82% 12,323
Scott 5,093 75.30% 1,067 15.77% 604 8.93% 4,026 59.53% 6,764
Sharkey 1,188 49.32% 972 40.35% 249 10.34% 216 8.97% 2,409
Simpson 5,064 72.16% 1,079 15.37% 875 12.47% 3,985 56.79% 7,018
Smith 4,367 84.70% 352 6.83% 437 8.48% 3,930[e] 76.22% 5,156
Stone 2,140 78.91% 314 11.58% 258 9.51% 1,826 67.33% 2,712
Sunflower 3,932 51.94% 2,602 34.37% 1,036 13.69% 1,330 17.57% 7,570
Tallahatchie 3,076 59.96% 1,477 28.79% 577 11.25% 1,599 31.17% 5,130
Tate 2,810 61.39% 1,162 25.39% 605 13.22% 1,648 36.00% 4,577
Tippah 4,627 78.70% 663 11.28% 589 10.02% 3,964 67.42% 5,879
Tishomingo 4,569 82.41% 358 6.46% 617 11.13% 3,952[e] 71.28% 5,544
Tunica 783 33.62% 1,133 48.65% 413 17.73% -350 -15.03% 2,329
Union 5,198 76.78% 624 9.22% 948 14.00% 4,250[e] 62.78% 6,770
Walthall 3,186 66.29% 1,233 25.66% 387 8.05% 1,953 40.63% 4,806
Warren 7,217 51.14% 4,503 31.91% 2,392 16.95% 2,714 19.23% 14,112
Washington 6,300 41.12% 5,520 36.03% 3,500 22.85% 780 5.09% 15,320
Wayne 4,089 80.57% 739 14.56% 247 4.87% 3,350 66.01% 5,075
Webster 3,398 84.46% 295 7.33% 330 8.20% 3,068[e] 76.26% 4,023
Wilkinson 1,503 38.35% 2,144 54.71% 272 6.94% -641 -16.36% 3,919
Winston 4,635 76.56% 911 15.05% 508 8.39% 3,724 61.51% 6,054
Yalobusha 2,725 65.50% 873 20.99% 562 13.51% 1,852 44.51% 4,160
Yazoo 4,939 61.28% 2,163 26.84% 958 11.89% 2,776 34.44% 8,060
Totals 415,349 63.46% 150,644 23.02% 88,516 13.52% 264,705 40.44% 654,509

Counties that flipped from Republican to American Independent[edit]

Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic[edit]

By congressional district[edit]

Wallace won all 5 congressional districts, all of which were held by democrats.[28]

District Wallace Humphrey Nixon Representative
1st 60.4% 26.1% 13.6% Thomas Abernethy
2nd 63.3% 22.9% 13.8% Jamie Whitten
3rd 54.7% 29.6% 15.8% Charles H. Griffin
4th 68.6% 22.5% 8.9% Sonny Montgomery

5th

70.1% 14.7% 15.2% William M. Colmer

Analysis[edit]

This was the second presidential election in which Richard Nixon came in third place in Mississippi. Humphrey improved upon the support gained by Johnson, but this was entirely due to the huge increases in black voter registration – exit polls and later analysis suggest the national Democratic nominee received less than 3 percent of the white vote.[29] In fact, so marked was the reversal of voting patterns from the previous five presidential elections that Humphrey did worst in the counties where Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Adlai Stevenson II and Harry S. Truman had run best.[30]

With 63.46 percent of the popular vote, Mississippi would prove to be Wallace's second strongest state in the 1968 election after neighboring Alabama.[31]

As of the 2020 presidential election, this is the last election in which the following counties did not vote for the Republican presidential candidate: Forrest, Lowndes, Lamar, Lauderdale, Lincoln, Newton, Rankin, Scott, Simpson, Harrison, Jackson, Choctaw, Jones, and Smith.[32]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ The Independent electors were originally pledged to Vice Presidential candidate S. Marvin Griffin, but they cast their Vice-Presidential ballots for national nominee Curtis LeMay.[1]
  2. ^ 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.
  3. ^ These unpledged electors supported Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd for President and South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond for Vice-President.
  4. ^ Over the whole of Mississippi it is estimated that at the time of the 1964 presidential election between six and seven percent of the black population was registered to vote, and that about three-quarters of these – totalling twenty-one thousand blacks – actually voted in the 1964 presidential election, giving Lyndon Johnson about 40 percent of his fifty-two thousand statewide votes. However, in most rural counties, black registration was zero before the Voting Rights Act and had been since the Constitution of 1890.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q In this county where Nixon ran second ahead of Humphrey, margin given is Wallace vote minus Nixon vote and percentage margin is Wallace percentage minus Nixon percentage.

References[edit]

  1. ^ "General Election November 5, 1968," Mississippi Official and Statistical Register 1968-1972 (Jackson, 1969)
  2. ^ Crespino, Joseph; In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution, p. 206 ISBN 0691122091
  3. ^ Mitchell, Dennis J.; A New History of Mississippi; p. 453 ISBN 1617039764
  4. ^ Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, pp. 208, 210 ISBN 9780691163246
  5. ^ Katagiri, Yasuhiro; The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission: Civil Rights and States' Rights, p. 203 ISBN 1604730080
  6. ^ Thernstrom, Stephan and Thernstrom, Abigail; America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible, p. 151 ISBN 1439129096
  7. ^ Mickey, Robert; Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972, pp. 289-290 ISBN 1400838789
  8. ^ Phillips; The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 253
  9. ^ Phillips; The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 264
  10. ^ Dittmer, John; Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi, p. 417 ISBN 0252065077
  11. ^ Mickey, Paths out of Dixie, p. 290
  12. ^ Polsky, Andrew J.; The Eisenhower Presidency: Lessons for the Twenty-First Century, p. 34 ISBN 1498522211
  13. ^ a b Nash, Jere and Taggart, Andy; Mississippi Politics: The Struggle for Power, 1976-2008, p. 29 ISBN 1604733578
  14. ^ Bolton, Charles C.; William F. Winter and the New Mississippi: A Biography, p. 150 ISBN 1617037877
  15. ^ Crespino, In Search of Another Country, p. 221
  16. ^ a b 1968 Presidential General Election Results – Mississippi US Election Atlas
  17. ^ Black & Black 1992, p. 147.
  18. ^ Black & Black 1992, p. 295.
  19. ^ Black & Black 1992, p. 335.
  20. ^ Broder, David S. (September 14, 1968). "As Campaign Heats Up, Electoral Vote Pattern Favors GOP". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The Washington Post. p. 6-A.
  21. ^ "Who's on Top? Humphrey? Nixon? Wallace? — Here's a Capsule Version of election Outlook Across Nation". Pensacola News Journal. September 23, 1968. p. 8B.
  22. ^ Murray, David. "Wallace Might Take 6 Southern States". Daily Press. Newport News, Virginia. p. 51.
  23. ^ "In South It's Nixon vs. Wallace". The Charlotte News. Charlotte, North Carolina. October 12, 1968. pp. 1, 3.
  24. ^ "Nixon Leads in 26 States: Wallace Will Run Strong: AP". The Record. Hackensack, New Jersey. Associated Press. October 21, 1968. p. 3.
  25. ^ Broder, David S. (November 3, 1968). "After Hoopla Finished, Nixon Still Winning, Survey Shows". Shreveport Times. p. 4-B.
  26. ^ "Summary of 50 States on Coming Election". The Selma Times-Journal. Selma, Alabama. November 3, 1968. p. 5.
  27. ^ Lawrence, David (November 4, 1968). "As Editors' Forecast Returns: Nixon 37, Humphrey 7, Wallace 7". Fort Lauderdale News. p. 11A.
  28. ^ 1972 Almanac of American Politics (1972) by Michael Barone, Grant Ujifusa and Douglas Matthews
  29. ^ Black, Earl (2021). "Competing Responses to the New Southern Politics: Republican and Democratic Southern Strategies, 1964-76". In Reed, John Shelton; Black, Merle (eds.). Perspectives on the American South: An Annual Review of Society, Politics, and Culture. ISBN 9781136764882.
  30. ^ Phillips; The Emerging Republican Majority, pp. 245, 266
  31. ^ "1968 Presidential Election Statistics". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved March 5, 2018.
  32. ^ Sullivan, Robert David; ‘How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century’; America Magazine in The National Catholic Review; June 29, 2016

Works cited[edit]

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