-
1964 Elections
-
1966 Elections
~-~-~1968 Elections~-~-~
LBJ's 1964 landslide and down ballot coattails allowed for the most productive period of liberal legislation since the New Deal, with his "Great Society" political program vigorously fighting for civil rights and voting rights, establishing a single payer health care system, and significantly expanding the social safety net, among other liberal reforms. But LBJ's popularity, and that of his party, saw a significant decline as a conservative backlash emerged and the Republicans made substantial gains in Congress in the 1966 midterms. After, LBJ was still President, and with majorities in both chambers of Congress, but the liberal wing of the party - especially in the House - had taken a very hard hit and saw a major decline in the midterms, and the reduced majority was rather more cautious in legislation than it had been in the preceding two years, being unwilling to pass any much more substantial liberal legislation
The two years between the 1966 and 1968 elections saw a continuation of the trends that had been occurring beforehand, further departing from the '64 triumph of liberalism to a more divided and conflicted political sphere. Rioting continued, with the "Long Hot Summer of 1967", with conflicts emerging over matters of racism. urban poverty, and police brutality, vs an increasingly popular rhetoric of "tough on crime". Also seen was the emergence of the "hippie" subculture, as well as its critics. And the Vietnam War had been ramping up in intensity, becoming another fault-line for strong political conflict, protests, and counter-protests, especially during and after the Tet Offensive
The Republican Party entered the 1968 election cycle optimistic. Richard Nixon started off as a clear front-runner for the nomination, and ended up beating Romney and Reagan in order to win the nomination. Nixon made a strong conservative argument to "tough on crime"/"law and order" politics, but was no Goldwater - where the 1964 loser spoke of sawing off the eastern seaboard, Nixon spoke of unity. He broadly sought to pose himself as a pragmatic conservative, seeking a reduction in Federal responsibility while being willing to work and compromise with a Democratic Congress, and wishing to reform and in some cases eliminate Great Society programs but retaining a substantial safety net nonetheless. On healthcare, for example, Nixon preferred the elimination of the National Health Insurance Administration, but advocated for replacing it with a system of mandated private insurance, subsidies for low income healthcare, and the creation of a universal old-age insurance program. On civil rights, Nixon criticized things like forced busing, but nonetheless supported continued federal enforcement of integration. Nixon's orientation was seen as a strong way to balance appealing to the party base, taking advantage of the political situations, and reaching out to voters who had been repulsed by the Goldwater campaign but were also put off by perceived excesses of the Great Society and the social disorder sweeping the nation. Republicans thus went into the election optimistic and unified
The Democratic Party entered the 1968 election cycle in shambles. LBJ sought reelection for a second full term, but faced a strong primary challenge from the left from Eugene McCarthy, and withdrew from seeking a second term after a poor showing in the first state primary. At that point, a three way race emerged between anti-war McCarthy and Kennedy, and incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey. The race was shaken up again, with the assassination of Robert Kennedy. At the convention, Humphrey was able to attain the nomination, but with controversy - he won without winning a single state of the states that did have primaries at that point. The Democratic National Convention itself saw significant anti-war protest against Johnson and Humphrey, which ended with a 'police riot' of brutality against protesters, one more incident of unrest that, despite the investigation finding police responsibility, was used by the Republicans as another example of why "tough on crime" policy was needed. To make matters worse for the Democrats, southern conservative Democrat George C. Wallace, split from the party, running on a third party segregationist platform, and surging to take between 10 and 20% in polls. The Democratic Party thus presented a chaotic contrast to the organization and unity of the Republican Party
Humphrey entered the general election season a clear underdog in polling, and with a very disunited party - Nixon was widely expected to win without much difficulty. Though once a darling of liberals for his support of the civil rights movement, and an early critic of the Vietnam War, as Vice President, LBJ threatened and intimidated Humphrey to the point where he largely just shut up and repeated the administration's line on the War. Thus by the 1968 Democratic Convention, the liberal anti-war movement frankly loathed Humphrey for his loyalty to Johnson. But Humphrey had remained privately critical of the war, with misgivings over the LBJ administration's contrast of major liberal domestic successes and foreign disappointments. At the convention, Humphrey defied Johnson's suggestion to pick a southern conservative for his running mate, and instead chose Oklahoman liberal Fred Harris. And just a week after his nomination, Humphrey publicly broke with Johnson on the war, calling for an end to the bombings. LBJ was livid, and some cast Humphrey as an opportunist for flip-flopping so vividly, but Humphrey nonetheless saw a resurgence of support from antiwar liberals, solidifying support from former Kennedy and McCarthy supporters
Expected to lose big, Humphrey nonetheless put up a strong fight, with a concerted appeal to union voters in particular, continuing to distance himself from the foreign policy of the Johnson administration while pledging to defend and expand on the domestic achievements, and attacking Nixon for refusing to hold any debates. Humphrey's support began to rise in the polls. Though still leading, Nixon began to get nervous, and eventually reluctantly agreed to debate Humphrey, in the hopes that he'd manage better than he did in 1960 and reverse Humphrey's rise. But in the first debate, Nixon was widely considered to have done rather worse than he did in the 1960 debates, and he pulled out from following debates. Polls after showed a continuing shift towards Humphrey, virtually tied or even beating Nixon, though it was still widely expected that Nixon would hold an electoral college advantage and at the very least see the election go to the House due to Wallace potentially enabling a hung electoral college
Despite the rift between Johnson and Humphrey, the President announced a halt to bombing in early October, and news of positive developments in Vietnam peace negotiations came out. At this point, Humphrey also gained the endorsement of Eugene McCarthy, who had previously withheld endorsement. This so-called "Leif Erikson Peace" generated positive approval for Humphrey and saw him take the lead from Nixon. In mid October, however, the peace talks collapsed, and for a moment it looked like Nixon might halt or even reverse Humphrey's momentum
Then word leaked that Nixon had played a role in sabotaging the peace talks
NSA wiretaps had found evidence that Nixon had authorized "throwing a monkey wrench" into the peace talks. Modern historians are skeptical in regards to whether Nixon's actions actually made a difference or whether a peace deal had any chance of happening without Nixon's actions, but even if ineffectual, such actions have been seen as arguably treasonous. Despite his chilly relationship with Humphrey, Johnson informed him of this information, preferring not to leak the information for fear of making the surveillance publicly known and shocking the nation, but leaving the ultimate decision up to his VP. Humphrey let the information go public, and attempted to play both sides, criticizing Nixon for acting against the peace negotiations, but also casting aspersions on the way the information was gained. Nixon expressed outrage at being bugged, but Humphrey was able to deflect the responsibility for that onto Johnson, and declared that while he thought it would be a dreadfully misguided choice to elect the person who was willing to sabotage a peace deal for political gain, he was also more than willing to launch a commission to study the matter of government surveillance and consider reforms, and that this could very well be a strong argument against Nixon's own "tough on crime" political stance, with too much power to law enforcement agencies potentially infringing on the right to privacy and due process. With these turns of events, Humphrey took a commanding lead in the polls in the final couple weeks of the campaign. Prominent Republicans criticized Johnson for wiretapping but also gave strong criticism to Nixon, and Nixon's running mate jumped ship, with House GOP whip Leslie Arends agreeing to be the sacrificial lamb to replace Agnew in states where the ticket could still be changed
Humphrey started off as a major underdog, but by the end of the election there was no doubt he'd win. In the end, he even managed to narrowly win an outright majority of the popular vote, and beat Nixon by nearly 17 points and 12 million votes. Starting from such a position of strength, Nixon only ended up winning about 5 points and 4 million votes more than Goldwater did 4 years prior, though he had significantly improved on the margin, with a loss of just 17 points, vs Goldwater's 42 point loss
Republicans felt quite disheartened that they lost another election in a big way, though this time they didn't face the monstrous losses they saw in 1964. Furthermore, conservatives argued that Nixon's loss was largely just due to campaign missteps and his scandal, rather than a rejection of conservatism in general like in 1964, and they took some heart in pointing out that the combined total of Nixon and Wallace votes was less than one percent behind Humphrey's totals. The narrative during the election was that Wallace's Dixiecrat campaign split the Democrats and hurt Humphrey, but the post-election narrative shifted to the idea that if anything, Wallace's split helped Humphrey, by giving an alternative conservative choice to the conservative Democrats who disliked the "Party of Lincoln" but otherwise may have just held their nose and voted for Nixon out of dislike for the liberal Humphrey. Republican strategists saw hope in this idea, and looked to the south - a region where Nixon failed to win a single state, but also a region where Humphrey failed to win an outright majority in a single state
At any rate, Humphrey did win, and with a big enough win that he could argue he had something of a real mandate. In the House, his party lost just a handful of seats, with a solid majority even if not as high as it was after the 1964 elections, and in the Senate, his party gained a few seats, reaching the same number it held after the 1964 elections. With such majorities, and after holding the line in a presidential election rather than taking huge losses in midterms, he had a shot at being able to wrangle some policy out of Congress. And he'd be able to ensure that scandalized justice Abe Fortas would see a liberal replacement, as would any other Supreme Court seat openings that might occur (two more would occur) during the next four years, cementing in place a liberal Supreme Court for years to come. The nation certainly faced problems, with the Vietnam War and the collapse of peace negotiations being just one, and it was far from clear at the start of Humphrey's presidency how much he'd manage to do or whether he'd manage to stabilize Great Society liberalism enough to survive in a more "normal" election, but he was certainly now in a position to try
In the House, the Republicans lost a bit in the popular vote, but retained most of their support, and were able to win a slight net-gain, of 5 seats
And in the Senate, the Democrats managed to win a net-gain of 3 seats
_______________________________________________________________________________
(Here, Humphrey comes out earlier against the war, manages to convince Nixon to debate him and beats him, and sees an earlier surge due to those things and due to the Johnson administration doing the "Halloween peace" bombing halt a few weeks earlier than OTL. Nixon's attempts to sabotage the peace negotiations also happen a bit earlier, and when the negotiations break down, Humphrey feels more comfortable going public, since it isn't just a couple days before the election and he feels he has more time to finesse the message and exploit the revelations while trying to avoid backlash to himself over the means of surveillance by which the revelations were made. This all combined allows Humphrey to go from the very narrow loss of OTL to this landslide win)
And
here's bigger versions of the maps