1968 United States presidential election in North Carolina

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Nominee Richard Nixon George Wallace Hubert Humphrey Party Republican American Independent Democratic Home state New York[a] Alabama Minnesota Running mate Spiro T. Agnew Curtis LeMay Edmund Muskie Electoral vote 12 1 0 Popular vote 627,192 496,188 464,113 Percentage 39.51% 31.26% 29.24%

County results Congressional district results Nixon   30–40%   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%   70–80% Wallace   30–40%   40–50%   50–60% Humphrey   30–40%   40–50%   50–60%

President before election Lyndon B. Johnson Democratic Elected President Richard Nixon Republican

The1968 United States presidential election in North Carolina took place on November 5, 1968, and was part of the1968 United States presidential election. Voters chose 13 representatives, or electors to theElectoral College, who voted forpresident andvice president. Whereas in the Deep South,Black Beltwhites had deserted the nationalDemocratic Party in1948, in North Carolina, where they had historically been an economically liberalizing influence on the state Democratic Party,^[1] the whitelandowners of the Black Belt had stayed exceedingly loyal to the party until afterthe Voting Rights Act. This allowed North Carolina to be, along withArkansas, the only state to vote for Democrats in all four presidential elections between1952 and1964. Indeed, the state had not voted Republican sinceanti-Catholic fervor lead it to supportHerbert Hoover overAl Smith in1928; and other than that the state had not votedRepublican once in the century since theReconstruction era election of1872. Nonetheless, in 1964 RepublicanBarry Goldwater may have won a small majority of white voters,^[b][3] although he was beaten by virtually universal support for incumbent PresidentLyndon Johnson by a black vote estimated at 175 thousand.

However, with the Voting Rights Act's passage, a reaction set in amongst these, and indeed amongst almost all Southernpoor whites outside the unionized coalfields of Appalachia.^[4] FormerAlabama GovernorGeorge Wallace, running in North Carolina under the moniker of the “American Party”, appealed very strongly to most white voters in the eastern half of the state who had become extremely critical ofblack protesters,student radicals, and risingcrime rates.^[5]

In early polls it was thought that Wallace would carry the state,^[6] but a major swing against him and towardRepublican nomineeRichard Nixon during October and November saw Nixon win the state, with 39.5 percent of the vote, whilst Wallace's 31.3 percent still pushed Democratic nominee and incumbentVice-PresidentHubert Humphrey into third on 29.2 percent. The Alabama segregationist carried almost all of thePiedmont andOuter Banks, and some Black Belt areas where black voter registration was still limited – the very areas that had allowedJohn F. Kennedy andAdlai Stevenson II to carry North Carolina when other Outer South states went Republican. In these previously loyal regions whites felt President Johnson had moved much too far on civil rights issues, and consequent support for highly segregationist candidates in Democraticprimary elections^[7] led them naturally to Wallace.^[8] Humphrey had very limited support outside of black voters, who were estimated to comprise well over half his total vote in the state,^[9] with his share of the white vote totaling less than 20 percent^[2] and coming mainly from some traditionally Democratic mountain counties and the university communities ofOrange andDurham counties. Among white voters, 48% supported Nixon, 41% supported Wallace, and 12% supported Humphrey.^[10][11][12]

Nixon won twelve of the state's electoral votes, while onefaithless elector that had been pledged to Nixon voted instead for Wallace. As of the2020 presidential election^[update], this is the last election in whichWayne County andLenoir County did not vote for the Republican presidential candidate.^[13]

• Watauga
• Ashe
• Clay
• Graham
• Cherokee
• Jackson
• Mecklenburg
• Madison
• Macon
• Yancey
• Surry
• Swain
• Caldwell
• Forsyth
• Guilford
• Lincoln
• Alleghany
• Rutherford
• Transylvania
• Buncombe
• Polk
• Rowan
• Wake
• Moore
• McDowell
• Haywood
• Carteret
• Sampson
• Stokes
• Gaston
• Montgomery
• Dare
• Chatham
• Union
• New Hanover

• Alamance
• Harnett
• Rockingham
• Cleveland
• Brunswick
• Pitt
• Johnston
• Lee
• Wayne
• Onslow
• Edgecombe
• Columbus
• Pamlico
• Richmond
• Hyde
• Person
• Nash
• Wilson
• Chowan
• Craven
• Bladen
• Beaufort
• Granville
• Halifax
• Anson
• Vance
• Lenoir
• Duplin
• Warren
• Pasquotank
• Gates
• Caswell
• Pender
• Martin
• Jones
• Perquimans
• Currituck
• Franklin
• Greene
• Camden

• Black, Earl;Black, Merle (1992).The Vital South: How Presidents Are Elected.Harvard University Press.ISBN 0674941306.

• 1968 United States presidential election by state
• United States presidential elections in North Carolina
• 1968 North Carolina elections

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