1968 United States presidential election in Mississippi
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 County Results
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| Elections in Mississippi |
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The 1968 United States presidential election in Mississippi was held on November 5, 1968. Mississippi voters chose 7 electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, who voted for President and Vice-President.
Background
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.[1][2] In 1960, the state had been narrowly captured by a slate of unpledged Democratic electors[b] but in 1964 universal white opposition to the Civil Rights Act and "War on Poverty" and zero or negligible black voter registration[c] meant that white Mississippians – apart from a small number in the northeastern red clay hills who feared loss of public works[3] – turned almost unanimously to Republican Barry Goldwater. Goldwater's support for "constitutional government and local self-rule"[4] meant that the absence from the ballot of "states' rights" parties was unimportant. The Arizona Senator was one of only six Republicans to vote against the Civil Rights Act,[5] and Goldwater's staunchly conservative policies caused the small Mississippi electorate to almost unanimously support him over the "big government" Johnson.
Following the Voting Rights Act, 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.[6] Extreme anger ensued among white Mississippians, because black voting in significant numbers would threaten the entire social fabric of the Black Belt[7] and was even feared by the few upcountry whites who had stayed loyal to Johnson as potentially causing social breakdown.[8] 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 blacks[9] – although it remained political suicide to openly court black support.[9]
In addition, the Twenty-Fourth Amendment and resultant abolition of Mississippi's rigorous poll tax requirements for voting had allowed large increases in white, as well as black, voter registration,[10] with some of these drives done by white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Consequently, when segregationist 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 his native Deep South. Meanwhile, the Republican Party in the 1966 mid-term elections had of necessity moved away from the strident conservatism of Goldwater – who had been replaced as Republican National Congress Chairman by Ray Bliss.[11]
Given Wallace's firmly established reputation as a segregationist, it was inevitable that he would be endorsed by Mississippi's established Democratic Party leadership, and this happened in September.[12] William Winter, the losing candidate for Governor the previous year, did support Democratic nominee and sitting Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, but knew that it would be too risky to actively campaign for him.[13]
Vote
By August, there was virtual unanimity that Wallace would carry Mississippi by a large margin,[14] as apart from a small number of wealthy urban communities, he had captured a virtual monopoly of the state's white electorate, including the small minority who had backed Johnson. Wallace was the only candidate to do any campaigning:[12] Nixon did not campaign in the state at all, and won more than twenty percent of the vote in just four of the state's 82 counties.[15] This was the second presidential election 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 suggest the national Democratic nominee received less than 5 percent of the white vote. 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 and Harry S. Truman had run best.[16]
With 63.46% of the popular vote, Mississippi would prove to be Wallace's second strongest state in the 1968 election after neighboring Alabama.[17]
As of the 2020 presidential election[update], 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.[18] It is also the last election in which the Republican nominee won the presidency without carrying Mississippi.
Results
| 1968 United States presidential election in Mississippi[15] | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | Percentage | Electoral votes | |
| Independent | George C. Wallace | 415,349 | 63.46% | 7 | |
| National 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
| County | Hubert Horatio Humphrey Democratic |
Richard Milhous Nixon Republican |
George Corley Wallace Independent |
Margin[d] | Total votes cast | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | ||
| Adams | 5,214 | 38.62% | 1,475 | 10.93% | 6,812 | 50.46% | -1,598 | -11.84% | 13,501 |
| Alcorn | 1,122 | 12.21% | 1,760 | 19.16% | 6,304 | 68.63% | -4,544[e] | -49.47% | 9,186 |
| Amite | 1,533 | 29.87% | 393 | 7.66% | 3,206 | 62.47% | -1,673 | -32.60% | 5,132 |
| Attala | 1,588 | 22.81% | 599 | 8.60% | 4,776 | 68.59% | -3,188 | -45.78% | 6,963 |
| Benton | 850 | 31.89% | 185 | 6.94% | 1,630 | 61.16% | -780 | -29.27% | 2,665 |
| Bolivar | 4,696 | 40.82% | 1,790 | 15.56% | 5,018 | 43.62% | -322 | -2.80% | 11,504 |
| Calhoun | 276 | 5.02% | 394 | 7.17% | 4,823 | 87.80% | -4,429[e] | -80.63% | 5,493 |
| Carroll | 925 | 28.96% | 138 | 4.32% | 2,131 | 66.72% | -1,206 | -37.76% | 3,194 |
| Chickasaw | 720 | 13.95% | 381 | 7.38% | 4,062 | 78.68% | -3,342 | -64.73% | 5,163 |
| Choctaw | 417 | 13.15% | 211 | 6.65% | 2,543 | 80.20% | -2,126 | -67.05% | 3,171 |
| Claiborne | 2,129 | 60.79% | 230 | 6.57% | 1,143 | 32.64% | 986 | 28.16% | 3,502 |
| Clarke | 878 | 16.29% | 298 | 5.53% | 4,214 | 78.18% | -3,336 | -61.89% | 5,390 |
| Clay | 1,510 | 27.41% | 494 | 8.97% | 3,505 | 63.62% | -1,995 | -36.21% | 5,509 |
| Coahoma | 5,352 | 49.11% | 1,875 | 17.20% | 3,671 | 33.69% | 1,681 | 15.42% | 10,898 |
| Copiah | 2,724 | 32.51% | 704 | 8.40% | 4,951 | 59.09% | -2,227 | -26.58% | 8,379 |
| Covington | 691 | 14.38% | 445 | 9.26% | 3,668 | 76.35% | -2,977 | -61.97% | 4,804 |
| DeSoto | 1,898 | 22.77% | 1,092 | 13.10% | 5,346 | 64.13% | -3,448 | -41.36% | 8,336 |
| Forrest | 2,957 | 18.22% | 3,294 | 20.30% | 9,975 | 61.48% | -6,681[e] | -41.17% | 16,226 |
| Franklin | 782 | 22.72% | 231 | 6.71% | 2,429 | 70.57% | -1,647 | -47.85% | 3,442 |
| George | 214 | 4.89% | 171 | 3.91% | 3,992 | 91.20% | -3,778 | -86.31% | 4,377 |
| Greene | 449 | 13.50% | 132 | 3.97% | 2,744 | 82.53% | -2,295 | -69.02% | 3,325 |
| Grenada | 2,050 | 28.86% | 718 | 10.11% | 4,335 | 61.03% | -2,285 | -32.17% | 7,103 |
| Hancock | 904 | 14.96% | 1,065 | 17.63% | 4,072 | 67.41% | -3,007[e] | -49.78% | 6,041 |
| Harrison | 4,549 | 15.55% | 6,542 | 22.37% | 18,157 | 62.08% | -11,615[e] | -39.71% | 29,248 |
| Hinds | 14,880 | 24.50% | 13,488 | 22.21% | 32,366 | 53.29% | -17,486 | -28.79% | 60,734 |
| Holmes | 3,881 | 52.38% | 520 | 7.02% | 3,008 | 40.60% | 873 | 11.78% | 7,409 |
| Humphreys | 1,219 | 33.60% | 258 | 7.11% | 2,151 | 59.29% | -932 | -25.69% | 3,628 |
| Issaquena | 527 | 47.69% | 44 | 3.98% | 534 | 48.33% | -7 | -0.63% | 1,105 |
| Itawamba | 417 | 6.74% | 569 | 9.19% | 5,204 | 84.07% | -4,635[e] | -74.88% | 6,190 |
| Jackson | 2,236 | 10.94% | 2,942 | 14.39% | 15,261 | 74.67% | -12,319[e] | -60.27% | 20,439 |
| Jasper | 987 | 22.13% | 373 | 8.36% | 3,100 | 69.51% | -2,113 | -47.38% | 4,460 |
| Jefferson | 2,121 | 62.75% | 147 | 4.35% | 1,112 | 32.90% | 1,009 | 29.85% | 3,380 |
| Jefferson Davis | 1,465 | 33.48% | 297 | 6.79% | 2,614 | 59.73% | -1,149 | -26.26% | 4,376 |
| Jones | 2,476 | 13.76% | 3,242 | 18.02% | 12,276 | 68.22% | -9,034[e] | -50.21% | 17,994 |
| Kemper | 655 | 19.54% | 167 | 4.98% | 2,530 | 75.48% | -1,875 | -55.94% | 3,352 |
| Lafayette | 1,578 | 25.69% | 1,235 | 20.11% | 3,329 | 54.20% | -1,751 | -28.51% | 6,142 |
| Lamar | 351 | 6.60% | 546 | 10.27% | 4,422 | 83.14% | -3,876[e] | -72.87% | 5,319 |
| Lauderdale | 3,195 | 15.69% | 2,328 | 11.43% | 14,842 | 72.88% | -11,647 | -57.19% | 20,365 |
| Lawrence | 740 | 19.00% | 329 | 8.45% | 2,825 | 72.55% | -2,085 | -53.54% | 3,894 |
| Leake | 1,295 | 20.50% | 453 | 7.17% | 4,568 | 72.32% | -3,273 | -51.82% | 6,316 |
| Lee | 1,912 | 13.99% | 2,522 | 18.45% | 9,232 | 67.55% | -6,710[e] | -49.10% | 13,666 |
| Leflore | 4,386 | 37.71% | 1,514 | 13.02% | 5,732 | 49.28% | -1,346 | -11.57% | 11,632 |
| Lincoln | 1,585 | 15.98% | 1,057 | 10.66% | 7,276 | 73.36% | -5,691 | -57.38% | 9,918 |
| Lowndes | 2,229 | 20.22% | 1,968 | 17.85% | 6,829 | 61.94% | -4,600 | -41.72% | 11,026 |
| Madison | 4,515 | 47.72% | 876 | 9.26% | 4,071 | 43.02% | 444 | 4.69% | 9,462 |
| Marion | 1,722 | 20.66% | 763 | 9.16% | 5,848 | 70.18% | -4,126 | -49.51% | 8,333 |
| Marshall | 2,907 | 46.30% | 577 | 9.19% | 2,794 | 44.50% | 113 | 1.80% | 6,278 |
| Monroe | 1,506 | 14.30% | 1,167 | 11.08% | 7,856 | 74.61% | -6,350 | -60.31% | 10,529 |
| Montgomery | 896 | 20.56% | 475 | 10.90% | 2,988 | 68.55% | -2,092 | -47.99% | 4,359 |
| Neshoba | 867 | 11.09% | 531 | 6.79% | 6,417 | 82.11% | -5,550 | -71.02% | 7,815 |
| Newton | 799 | 11.58% | 542 | 7.85% | 5,561 | 80.57% | -4,762 | -68.99% | 6,902 |
| Noxubee | 1,387 | 37.91% | 232 | 6.34% | 2,040 | 55.75% | -653 | -17.85% | 3,659 |
| Oktibbeha | 1,826 | 25.26% | 1,276 | 17.65% | 4,127 | 57.09% | -2,301 | -31.83% | 7,229 |
| Panola | 2,743 | 34.40% | 1,098 | 13.77% | 4,133 | 51.83% | -1,390 | -17.43% | 7,974 |
| Pearl River | 926 | 11.19% | 1,298 | 15.69% | 6,050 | 73.12% | -4,752[e] | -57.43% | 8,274 |
| Perry | 439 | 13.69% | 227 | 7.08% | 2,541 | 79.23% | -2,102 | -65.54% | 3,207 |
| Pike | 2,848 | 28.05% | 1,460 | 14.38% | 5,846 | 57.57% | -2,998 | -29.53% | 10,154 |
| Pontotoc | 599 | 9.77% | 733 | 11.96% | 4,798 | 78.27% | -4,065[e] | -66.31% | 6,130 |
| Prentiss | 440 | 7.08% | 723 | 11.63% | 5,055 | 81.30% | -4,332[e] | -69.67% | 6,218 |
| Quitman | 1,502 | 34.30% | 434 | 9.91% | 2,443 | 55.79% | -941 | -21.49% | 4,379 |
| Rankin | 1,975 | 16.03% | 1,124 | 9.12% | 9,224 | 74.85% | -7,249 | -58.82% | 12,323 |
| Scott | 1,067 | 15.77% | 604 | 8.93% | 5,093 | 75.30% | -4,026 | -59.52% | 6,764 |
| Sharkey | 972 | 40.35% | 249 | 10.34% | 1,188 | 49.32% | -216 | -8.97% | 2,409 |
| Simpson | 1,079 | 15.37% | 875 | 12.47% | 5,064 | 72.16% | -3,985 | -56.78% | 7,018 |
| Smith | 352 | 6.83% | 437 | 8.48% | 4,367 | 84.70% | -3,930[e] | -76.22% | 5,156 |
| Stone | 314 | 11.58% | 258 | 9.51% | 2,140 | 78.91% | -1,826 | -67.33% | 2,712 |
| Sunflower | 2,602 | 34.37% | 1,036 | 13.69% | 3,932 | 51.94% | -1,330 | -17.57% | 7,570 |
| Tallahatchie | 1,477 | 28.79% | 577 | 11.25% | 3,076 | 59.96% | -1,599 | -31.17% | 5,130 |
| Tate | 1,162 | 25.39% | 605 | 13.22% | 2,810 | 61.39% | -1,648 | -36.01% | 4,577 |
| Tippah | 663 | 11.28% | 589 | 10.02% | 4,627 | 78.70% | -3,964 | -67.43% | 5,879 |
| Tishomingo | 358 | 6.46% | 617 | 11.13% | 4,569 | 82.41% | -3,952[e] | -71.28% | 5,544 |
| Tunica | 1,133 | 48.65% | 413 | 17.73% | 783 | 33.62% | 350 | 15.03% | 2,329 |
| Union | 624 | 9.22% | 948 | 14.00% | 5,198 | 76.78% | -4,250[e] | -62.78% | 6,770 |
| Walthall | 1,233 | 25.66% | 387 | 8.05% | 3,186 | 66.29% | -1,953 | -40.64% | 4,806 |
| Warren | 4,503 | 31.91% | 2,392 | 16.95% | 7,217 | 51.14% | -2,714 | -19.23% | 14,112 |
| Washington | 5,520 | 36.03% | 3,500 | 22.85% | 6,300 | 41.12% | -780 | -5.09% | 15,320 |
| Wayne | 739 | 14.56% | 247 | 4.87% | 4,089 | 80.57% | -3,350 | -66.01% | 5,075 |
| Webster | 295 | 7.33% | 330 | 8.20% | 3,398 | 84.46% | -3,068[e] | -76.26% | 4,023 |
| Wilkinson | 2,144 | 54.71% | 272 | 6.94% | 1,503 | 38.35% | 641 | 16.36% | 3,919 |
| Winston | 911 | 15.05% | 508 | 8.39% | 4,635 | 76.56% | -3,724 | -61.51% | 6,054 |
| Yalobusha | 873 | 20.99% | 562 | 13.51% | 2,725 | 65.50% | -1,852 | -44.52% | 4,160 |
| Yazoo | 2,163 | 26.84% | 958 | 11.89% | 4,939 | 61.28% | -2,776 | -34.44% | 8,060 |
| Totals | 150,644 | 23.02% | 88,516 | 13.52% | 415,349 | 63.46% | -264,705 | -40.44% | 654,509 |
Notes
- ^ 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.
- ^ These unpledged electors supported Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd for President and South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond for Vice-President.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Because Wallace finished first in Mississippi as a whole and Humphrey was the highest-polling statewide major party nominee in the state as a whole, all margins and percentage margins shown are Humphrey minus Wallace unless otherwise stated.
- ^ 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 Nixon vote minus Wallace vote and percentage margin is Nixon percentage minus Wallace percentage.
References
- ^ 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
- ^ a b 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
- ^ a b Nash, 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
- ^ a b 1968 Presidential General Election Results – Mississippi US Election Atlas
- ^ Phillips; The Emerging Republican Majority, pp. 245, 266
- ^ "1968 Presidential Election Statistics". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved 2018-03-05.
- ^ Sullivan, Robert David; ‘How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century’; America Magazine in The National Catholic Review; June 29, 2016
