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| United States presidential election, 1968 | ||||
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| November 5, 1968 | ||||
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| Nominee | Robert F Kennedy | Richard Nixon | ||
| Party | Democratic | Republican | ||
| Home state | New York | New York | ||
| Running mate | Eugene McCarthy | Winthrop Rockefeller | ||
| Electoral vote | 392 | 146 | ||
| States carried | 32 + D.C. | 18 | ||
| Popular vote | 54,868,090 | 43,557,126 | ||
| Percentage | 55.3% | 43.9% | ||
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| Presidential election results map | ||||
President before election
Lyndon B Johnson Democratic
Elected President
Robert F Kennedy Democratic | ||||
The United States Presidential Election of 1968 was the 46th quadriennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1968. It was won by the Democratic nominee, Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York, who defeated former Vice-President Richard Nixon, the Republican nominee - by a landslide in the popular vote as a result both of unprecedentedly high turnout among students and minority voters in support of his campaign, fought on a platform of expanded civil rights, and opposition to the Vietnam War, and of depressed turnout in the South, where Nixon swept the board - and handily in the electoral college.
The election proved notable in a number of respects. Firstly, in June of election year, Senator Kennedy was near-fatally shot, rendering him bedridden in hospital for over a month subsequently, with uncertainty around his survival prompting a realignment of some of his support base to Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy, whose eventual decision to offer his support to Kennedy in return for a place on the ticket provided a resolution to a bitterly divided Convention. Secondly, a much-vaunted third-party effort by Alabama Governor George Wallace in opposition to desegregation ultimately proved ineffectual, largely due to a singularly well-organized Southern effort by the Nixon campaign spearheaded by his Vice-Presidential pick, Arkansas Governor Winthrop Rockefeller.
Kennedy-McCarthy campaign logo
Nixon-Rockefeller campaign logo