Could George Wallace have become president?

I was reading up on George Wallace and I was wondering if at any time during his political career there was a reasonable chance that he could have been elected president. I think that him winning in 1968 is highly unlikely, but could he have gained the Democratic nomination in 1972, and if he did gain the nomination in 1972, could he have won?
 
In 1972, Wallace could not have won the democratic nomination. Even if he had won the most delegates, which might somehow be possible, the party bigwigs would never, never, have allowed him the nomination. It would have been too much of an embarrassement to have him on the ticket. Ironically, considering what happened in November, he might actually have gotten more electoral votes than Mcgovern did. I can see him winning a few southern states. Nixon would still have crushed him nationally, though.
 
I think it's quite certain he would have won more Electoral votes than McGovern's 17. Wallace wins Alabama and several other Southern states.

I agree that Wallace never could have won the Democratic Party nomination. But, hypothetically, if he did, you would certainly see a liberal third-party candidate running. Liberals, many moderates, and most non-Southern Democrats would be unhappy with a Nixon-Wallace choice. Someone like McGovern would probably run -- not to win, but just to give the non-Wallace Democrats a place to go.

Wallace takes votes from Nixon, allowing McGovern to win some states he wouldn't win in a head-to-head Nixon vs. McGovern matchup. Wallace wins more states than he did in 1968. As the official Democratic nominee, he's stronger than he was in 1968. He wins Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, plus a few new states -- like Tennessee, the Carolinas, maybe Florida.

It's possible no one wins the Electoral College, and Congress decides the presidency.
 
WI the old Eastern establishment of the Republican party has asserted itself in 1968, and the anti war movement had decided on the third party route.

If you had Rockerfella, versus Johnson versus an anti War Senator- and there had been some awful racially linked riots that fall...

I do not know but....
 
Hmmm... it seems that a Wallace presidency is a bit of a improbability.

What if Nixon was assasinated or paralyzed by Arthur Bremer rather than Bremer shooting George Wallace. According to Bremer's diary, he would have rather shot Nixon, but found it a little too hard to get close to the President.

If Nixon was out of the race in May, I don't see the Republicans recovering from this. Combined with a strong Wallace campaign, could Wallace have then won the election?
 
In 1972, Wallace could not have won the democratic nomination. Even if he had won the most delegates, which might somehow be possible, the party bigwigs would never, never, have allowed him the nomination. It would have been too much of an embarrassement to have him on the ticket. Ironically, considering what happened in November, he might actually have gotten more electoral votes than Mcgovern did. I can see him winning a few southern states. Nixon would still have crushed him nationally, though.

In 1972 most delegates were selected in primaries due to party reforms (the McGovern-Fraser commission), 1968 was the last Democratic convention where the party leaders held most of the delegates.


I had a President George Wallace in an ATL where civil rights go bad, but generally speaking Wallace wasn't going to win either the Democratic nomination (which, if I recall correctly, Nixon basically bribed him into in 1972) or a general election.
 
If Wallace hadn't gotten shot in '72 he might have been able to make a run on the nomination in '76. He was southern (like Carter) and he had a good claim on Nixon's "silent majority". And after the disaster of McGovern's nomination in '72, he might be able to market himself as a tough, nationally recognizable candidate.
 
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