The1968 United States presidential election in Minnesota took place on November 5, 1968, as part of the1968 United States presidential election. Voters chose ten electors, or representatives to theElectoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
TheAmerican candidate, former Alabama governorGeorge Wallace, failed to make a substantial impact in Minnesota, as his base of support was primarily in theDeep South. While Wallace took 13.5% of the national popular vote and won five states of the former Confederacy, he only took 4.43% of the vote in Minnesota, his weakest state in theMidwestern United States.
Nationally, Nixon won the election with 301 electoral votes, though he led Humphrey by less than a percent in the popular vote. The election permanently disrupted theNew Deal Coalition, which had been dominant in presidential politics since1932. This was the first election since1916 in which Minnesota backed the losing candidate in a presidential election. Nixon became the first Republican to win a presidential election without winning Minnesota. Nixon also became the first Republican to win without carryingMower County, which would be repeated by every subsequent Republican winner untilDonald Trump in2016.
Until 2016, this was the last presidential election in Minnesota where any county was won with over seventy percent of the popular vote. In 2016,Donald Trump carried Morrison County with 73% of the vote, and Todd County with 70.75% of the vote. In this case, Humphrey won the following counties over this threshold:Carlton County,Lake County, andSaint Louis County. It was not until 2020 that Democrats received over 70% of the vote in a Minnesota county again, namelyHennepin andRamsey counties.
^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.
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