1968 Democratic Party presidential primaries
From March to July 1968, Democratic Party voters elected delegates to the 1968 Democratic National Convention for the purpose of selecting the party's nominee for president in the upcoming election. After an inconclusive and tumultuous campaign focused on the Vietnam War and marred by the June assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey was nominated at the 1968 Democratic National Convention held from August 26 to August 29, 1968, in Chicago, Illinois.
The campaign for the nomination began with incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson expected to win re-nomination for a second consecutive election, despite low approval ratings following the Tet Offensive in January 1968. His only significant challenger was Eugene McCarthy, an anti-war Senator from Minnesota. After McCarthy nearly won the New Hampshire primary, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, another critic of the war and the brother of the late President John F. Kennedy, entered the race. Johnson soon announced that he would not campaign for re-election. In April, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey joined the race as the establishment candidate; he did not criticize the administration's conduct of the war and avoided the popular contests for delegates.
McCarthy and Kennedy traded primary victories while Humphrey collected delegates through the closed caucus and convention systems in place in most states. Many other delegates were selected without a formal commitment to support any particular candidate. The race was upended on June 5, the night of the California and South Dakota primaries. Both races went for Kennedy, but he was assassinated after his victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel. At the moment of his assassination, Kennedy trailed Humphrey in the pledged delegate count with McCarthy third. Without any obligation to vote for any candidate, most Kennedy delegates backed Humphrey over McCarthy or fell behind Kennedy supporter George McGovern.
At the convention, Humphrey secured the nomination easily despite anti-war protests outside the convention center; he went on to lose the presidential election narrowly to Richard Nixon. Partly in reaction to Humphrey's victory without entering most state primaries, George McGovern led the McGovern–Fraser Commission, dramatically reforming the nomination process to expand the use of popular primaries rather than caucuses.
Background[edit]
1960 and 1964 presidential elections[edit]
In 1960, John F. Kennedy won the Democratic nomination over Lyndon B. Johnson. After he secured the nomination at the party convention, Kennedy offered Johnson the vice presidential nomination; the offer was a surprise, and some Kennedy supporters claimed that the nominee expected Johnson to decline. Robert F. Kennedy, the nominee's brother and campaign manager, reportedly went to Johnson's hotel suite to dissuade Johnson from accepting.[1] Johnson accepted, and the Kennedy-Johnson ticket was narrowly elected, but the 1960 campaign intensified the personal enmity between Robert F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, which dated to as early as 1953. President Kennedy named his brother to his cabinet as United States Attorney General.
President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963; Johnson succeeded him with tremendous national popularity amid a wave of mourning and sympathy. Robert Kennedy remained in the cabinet for several months, creating what Johnson staffers began to refer to as "the Bobby problem": despite the personal hatred between the two, Democratic voters overwhelmingly favored Kennedy as Johnson's running mate in the 1964 election.[2] Kennedy began to plan for a nationwide campaign,[3] and in the informal New Hampshire vice-presidential primary, Kennedy defeated Hubert H. Humphrey in a landslide.[4]
In July 1964, Johnson issued an official statement ruling out any cabinet member for the vice presidency.[5] In search of a way out of the dilemma, Kennedy asked speechwriter Milton Gwirtzman to write a memo comparing two offices: 1) governor of Massachusetts and 2) U.S. senator from New York, and "which would be a better place from which to make a run for the presidency in future years?"[6] In September, Kennedy resigned as attorney general, and ran for and won election to the U.S. Senate.[7] Johnson was elected in a landslide.
Campaign[edit]
March: New Hampshire, Kennedy enters, Johnson declines[edit]
Running as an antiwar candidate in the New Hampshire primary, McCarthy hoped to pressure the Democrats into publicly opposing the Vietnam War. Trailing badly in national polls and with little chance to influence delegate selection absent primary wins, McCarthy decided to pour most of his resources into New Hampshire, the first state to hold a primary election. He was boosted by thousands of young college students who volunteered throughout the state, who shaved their beards and cut their hair to "Get Clean for Gene."
On March 12, McCarthy was the only person on the ballot, as Johnson had not filed, and was only a write in candidate. McCarthy won 42% of the primary vote to Johnson's 50%, an extremely strong showing for such a challenger which gave McCarthy's campaign legitimacy and momentum.[16] In addition, McCarthy's superior coordination led to a near sweep of the state's twenty-four pledged delegates; since Johnson had no formal campaign organization in the state, a number of competing pro-Johnson delegate candidates split his vote, allowing McCarthy to take twenty delegates.
Despite his desire to oppose Johnson directly and the fear that McCarthy would split the anti-war vote, Kennedy pushed forward with his planned campaign. On March 16, Kennedy declared, "I am today announcing my candidacy for the presidency of the United States. I do not run for the presidency merely to oppose any man, but to propose new policies. I run because I am convinced that this country is on a perilous course and because I have such strong feelings about what must be done, and I feel that I'm obliged to do all I can."[17] However, due to his late entry, Kennedy's name would not appear on a state ballot until the Indiana primary on May 7.
Total popular vote:[148]
Johnson/Humphrey surrogates:
Minor candidates and write-ins:
Primary Map By County (Massachusetts not Included)
Hubert Humphrey – Red
Lyndon B. Johnson – Yellow (outside of Florida)
Robert F. Kennedy – Purple
Eugene McCarthy – Green
George Wallace – Lime Green
Roger D. Branigin – Orange
George Smathers – Yellow (Florida Only)
Stephen Young – Brown