1968 United States presidential election in Indiana

← 1964 November 5, 1968 1972 →
Turnout	69.5%[1] 2.2pp
Nominee Richard Nixon Hubert Humphrey George Wallace Party Republican Democratic American Independent Home state New York[a] Minnesota Alabama Running mate Spiro Agnew Edmund Muskie Curtis LeMay Electoral vote 13 0 0 Popular vote 1,067,885 806,659 243,108 Percentage 50.29% 37.99% 11.45%
County results Nixon   40–50%   50–60%   60–70% Humphrey   40–50%
President before election Lyndon B. Johnson Democratic Elected President Richard Nixon Republican

Apresidential election was held inIndiana on November 5, 1968. TheRepublican ticket of the formervice president of the United StatesRichard Nixon and thegovernor of MarylandSpiro Agnew defeated theDemocratic ticket of the incumbent vice presidentHubert Humphrey and the juniorU.S. senator fromMaineEdmund Muskie. TheAmerican Independent ticket of the formergovernor of AlabamaGeorge Wallace and thechief of staff of the United States Air ForceCurtis LeMay finished third. Nixon defeated Humphrey in the national election with 301electoral votes.^[2]

Nixon ran unopposed in the May Republican primary, garnering just over half a million votes.^[3] The junior U.S. senator fromNew YorkRobert F. Kennedy won the Democratic primary with the overwhelming support of the state'sBlack voters.Kennedy's assassination a month later preceded the1968 Democratic National Convention, which nominated Humphrey amidstprotests against theUnited States' involvement in theVietnam War.^[4]

Republicans were expected to flip Indiana four years after the Democraticlandslide victory in1964.^[5] Some polls showed Wallace running even with Humphrey in late October;^[6] however, byElection Day his share of the vote had fallen drastically, finishing at 11 percent.^[2] Wallace performed best in counties with large concentrations ofBlack voters, wherewhite support for Wallace counterbalanced Black support for the Democratic ticket.^[7] Nixon's victory marked the first of ten consecutive Republican presidential wins in Indiana; not untilBarack Obama in2008 would a Democratic presidential candidate carry the state.

Although it was considered a reliably Republican state, Indiana defected from the Republican column in 1964 to support the Democratic incumbentpresidentLyndon Johnson, who became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry Indiana sinceFranklin D. Roosevelt in1936.^[8] The defeated Republican candidate,Barry Goldwater, faced powerful hostility fromNorthern andSouthern Indiana that doomed his campaign in the state.^[9]

Wallace contested the1964 Democratic Party presidential primaries and won significant support in Indiana counties that would soon become part of theRust Belt. He nevertheless lost the Indiana primary by a greater than two-to-one margin to thegovernor of IndianaMatthew E. Welsh, who ran as astalking horse for Johnson.^[10]Regression analysis conducted after the election revealed significantblue-collar support for Wallace, in contrast toWisconsin, wheremiddle classconservatism underlay Wallace's strong performance in the Democratic primary.^[11]

Republicans recovered some ground in the1966 United States House of Representatives elections in Indiana. The party made significant gains inSouthern Indiana and in the significantlyGerman-AmericanCentral region, but did less well in Northern Indiana.^[12]

Kennedy defeated the governor of IndianaRoger D. Branigin and the senior U.S. senator fromMinnesotaEugene McCarthy in the Indiana Democratic primary. The senator had selected the Indiana primary as the first event of his candidacy after entering the race in March and hoped that a strong showing in the state would catapult him to the nomination, much as his brotherJohn F. Kennedy's victory in the1960 West Virginia Democratic primary had done eight years earlier.^[13]

Kennedy made his first appearance inIndianapolis on April 4, 1968, hours after theassassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. inMemphis, Tennessee.Kennedy's speech to the crowd of mourners is sometimes credited for the peaceful response to King's assassination in Indianapolis, in contrast toriots in other major cities.^[14]

Branigin had initially agreed to run as a stalking horse for Johnson prior to the latter's withdrawal from the race in March. Some Kennedy backers believed their candidate could not prevail against the popular and erudite governor, and instead hoped for a strong second place finish. Branigin's perceived apathy to the economic demands of thecivil rights movement alienated Black organizations like the Radical Action Program, whose president, Charles Hendricks, was a fervent Kennedy supporter.^[15]

Kennedy's position as an anti-war candidate placed him in competition with McCarthy, who was known for hisopposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War. Kennedy enjoyed the support of most of the Black community, while McCarthy was enormously popular with the student movement.^[16]

Kennedy ultimately did carry the state by a 12-point margin over Branigin, while McCarthy finished third with 27 percent of the vote. Kennedy was the overwhelming choice of Black voters, winning 90 percent of the vote in the Black-majority precincts ofGary, Indiana. In some Black-majority precincts in Indianapolis, Branigin and McCarthy together received only a few dozen votes. Kennedy carried nine of Indiana's 11 congressional districts, earning 56 of the state's 63 delegates to the1968 Democratic National Convention. Branigin carried two districts and seven delegates, while McCarthy received no delegates.^[17]

1968 United States presidential election in Indiana^[18]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Republican	Richard Nixon Spiro Agnew	1,067,885	50.29	6.73
	Democratic	Hubert Humphrey Edmund Muskie	806,659	37.99	17.99
	American Independent	George Wallace Curtis LeMay	243,108	11.45	11.45
	Prohibition	E. Harold Munn Rolland Fisher	4,616	0.22	0.18
	Socialist Workers	Fred Halstead Paul Boutelle	1,293	0.06	0.06
	Freedom and Peace	Dick Gregory (write-in) Mark Lane (write-in)[19]	36	0.00
Total votes			2,123,597	100.00

• United States presidential elections in Indiana

• Boomhower, Ray E. (2008).Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• Conway, M. Margaret (December 1968)."The White Backlash Re-examined: Wallace and the 1964 Primaries".Social Science Quarterly.49 (3):710–19.JSTOR 42858429.
• Congressional Quarterly (1985).Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections (2nd ed.). Washington D.C.: Congressional Quarterly.
• Madison, James H. (1986).The Indiana Way: A State History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• McGillivray, Alice V.; Scammon, Richard M. (1994).America at the Polls, 1960–1992: Kennedy to Clinton; A Handbook of American Presidential Election Statistics. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly.
• Phillips, Kevin P. (1969).The Emerging Republican Majority. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House.LCCN 76-79602.
• Salin, William N. (1968).General Election Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Indiana: 1968 General Election Statistics. Indianapolis: Indiana Secretary of State.
• Schaffer, William R.; Caputo, David A. (November 1972)."Political Continuity in Indiana Presidential Elections: An Analysis Based on the Key-Munger Paradigm".Midwest Journal of Political Science.16 (4):700–11.JSTOR 2110383.

• 1968 Indiana elections
• 1968 United States presidential election by state
• United States presidential elections in Indiana

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