Likeliest path for George Wallace to become President

What is the likeliest way for George Wallace to become President? This includes him being VP and the president dying, but some of that may be ASB (so someone who dies in OTL in that year perhaps).


Special props if someone can have him win in an election, then get his butt whooped in his reelection (Wallace interests me due to his political importance but I hate his hateful politics.)
 
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The easiest way is to not lose the turning point 1958 gubernatorial election OR to double down on his pro Civil Rights views after losing and end up as the 1964 or especially 1968 candidate if Nixon wins in '60.

Wallace could have been a remarkable populist president if he hadnt gone down the segregationist route. Or imagine a leftist version of Reagan/Bush with him and Scoop Jackson running together.
 
1976. Say Reagan wins the New Hampshire primary decisively - so decisively, in fact, that Ford drops out of the race early during primary season. This frees up a lot of right-wing voters, many of whom lived in the South and still identified as Democrats. These voters will likely vote for Wallace in their Democratic primaries. This gives him just enough of an advantage to win the Massachusetts primary (which, IOTL, he fell only a couple percentage points of winning). The resultant media attention preempts much of Carter's momentum and gives Wallace a critical boost in Southern and Rust Belt primaries (similar to Carter's OTL primary coalition, but with much less African-American support). He narrowly takes the Democratic nomination.

Of course, winning the general election is a different story...
 
I wish I could find the figures, but even at his most segregationist point in being Governor of Alabama Wallace was increasing the educational and economic opportunities for African-Americans, granted that was starting from a low place to begin with.
But with him winning in 1958 on a moderate civil rights platform makes him more acceptable to voters in the North and if Kennedy is not the nominee in 1960 but Humphrey is (which is another AHC in itself) then Wallace gets the VP nomination.
 
I wish I could find the figures, but even at his most segregationist point in being Governor of Alabama Wallace was increasing the educational and economic opportunities for African-Americans, granted that was starting from a low place to begin with.
But with him winning in 1958 on a moderate civil rights platform makes him more acceptable to voters in the North and if Kennedy is not the nominee in 1960 but Humphrey is (which is another AHC in itself) then Wallace gets the VP nomination.

I'm sure he would have done fine as an economic populist in the north. It's merely the liberals in the nomination/primary process that would be a hurdle in the north. I would be curious how well he could have done in the plains and mountain states in the general election. Thoughts?
 
Of course, winning the general election is a different story...
He’s have a pretty good shot; his political evolution had already begun and Reagan in 1976 was seen as a Goldwaterite. Wallace spent his 1976 campaign on “morals” post-Watergate, which would help again Reagan (who was still a Republican).

A Wallace vs Reagan general election probably means a liberal third-party candidate pops up.
McCarthy ran IOTL; he’d probably break the 5% threshold with Wallace and Reagan.
 
Nixon wins in 1960 and takes Dixiecrat resistance to federal authority as a personal insult. Nixon, rather than LBJ, goes down in history as the civil rights President.

But the POD is too late to butterfly away the Detroit and Watts riots, and the seeds of the sexual revolution were already planted before the 1960 election. Vietnam had already started, so by 1968 Nixon either has us in the same quagmire as OTL or he gets blamed for losing South Vietnam.

Enter Wallace in 1968. No openly racist platform, but he can run on the sluggish economy, foreign policy mess, opposition to the rising counterculture, and the same "law and order" dog whistle that OTL Nixon used. Since a GOP president signed the civil rights bill, Dixiecrats are still a stronger force within the Democratic party, and progressives are on the defensive due to the social climate alienating the Rust Belt. Wallace grabs the nomination and defeats Lodge in November.
 
He was actually quite popular in '72. Remember, in '68 he was pulling a good percentage of the vote before the disastrous LeMay pick, especially in the Midwest. But he seemed to learn from that and go full out populist in '72 and had seemingly figured out what he could and could not say. The busing issue was a godsend for him in the Democratic Primary because it was virulently unpopular, even among racial moderates and to an extent, progressives.

If he doesn't get shot, do I see the party allowing him to win even if he wins the most primaries? No. Or beating Nixon? No.

But I do think that its his best shot.

Then again, the Democratic Party was a shoo in for '76, and I think a lot of the Carter votes in the primary could have gone his way if Carter did not run. Brown, Udall, and Church would fight over the liberal vote. Scoop Jackson might have been able to slide up the middle and win, but remember, support for a hard line on the Cold War was at its nadir in '76 with the Church Commission and the post-Vietnam stuff, so a hardcore AFL-CIO Cold Warrior type like Jackson would be mercilessly attacked by the left of the party. If there is no unity effort, Wallace could potentially win the primaries had he run a good campaign.

My view? His best shot was either '72 by not getting shot, or in '76 with no Carter.

If there is another POD to think of, perhaps he gets shot, but does not get paralyzed. He gets the sympathy, but is able to be the bombastic performer that got him support to start on. '76 was a good year for populism, I think, after Watergate and the crisis in faith of institutions declining. Tough on crime was something everybody agreed on, as was the uselessness of the political establishment. Had he been able to go all out rather than sitting in a chair, could have been a different story.
 
He was actually quite popular in '72. Remember, in '68 he was pulling a good percentage of the vote before the disastrous LeMay pick, especially in the Midwest. But he seemed to learn from that and go full out populist in '72 and had seemingly figured out what he could and could not say. The busing issue was a godsend for him in the Democratic Primary because it was virulently unpopular, even among racial moderates and to an extent, progressives.

If he doesn't get shot, do I see the party allowing him to win even if he wins the most primaries? No. Or beating Nixon? No.

But I do think that its his best shot.

Then again, the Democratic Party was a shoo in for '76, and I think a lot of the Carter votes in the primary could have gone his way if Carter did not run. Brown, Udall, and Church would fight over the liberal vote. Scoop Jackson might have been able to slide up the middle and win, but remember, support for a hard line on the Cold War was at its nadir in '76 with the Church Commission and the post-Vietnam stuff, so a hardcore AFL-CIO Cold Warrior type like Jackson would be mercilessly attacked by the left of the party. If there is no unity effort, Wallace could potentially win the primaries had he run a good campaign.

My view? His best shot was either '72 by not getting shot, or in '76 with no Carter.

If there is another POD to think of, perhaps he gets shot, but does not get paralyzed. He gets the sympathy, but is able to be the bombastic performer that got him support to start on. '76 was a good year for populism, I think, after Watergate and the crisis in faith of institutions declining. Tough on crime was something everybody agreed on, as was the uselessness of the political establishment. Had he been able to go all out rather than sitting in a chair, could have been a different story.

Nixon vs Wallace in 72 would be interesting. I also agree that Wallace would lose, but he potentially could sweep the South.
 
The thing with Wallace is that it's very difficult to determine what he as a person believed. He was definitely a political opportunist - he was willing to go against everything he previously was in favor of (civil rights) and present himself as really racist and pro-segregation. So who knows.
 
I've always been intrigued by the rumour that Wallace offered to defect to the GOP and run with Goldwater. If he did that, or just defected in '64 with Thurmond, would be interesting to see him as the 'law and order' candidate in '68, which he's a more natural fit for than Nixon, arguably.


**EDIT**

From Wikipedia: "Wallace and his aides sought to determine if Barry M. Goldwater, the forthcoming Republican presidential nominee who as a senator from Arizona had voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on libertarian and constitutional grounds, would advocate repeal of the law, particularly the public accommodations and equal employment sections. Bill Jones indicated that Wallace agreed with Goldwater's anti-communist stance but opposed the Republican's proposal to make Social Security a voluntary program. Jones stressed that Wallace had sacrificed his own presidential aspirations that year to allow a direct Republican challenge to President Johnson. It was later disclosed that Wallace proposed at the meeting with Martin to switch parties if he could be named as Goldwater's running-mate, a designation later given to U.S. Representative William E. Miller of New York. Goldwater reportedly rejected the overture because of Wallace's lack of strength outside the Deep South."
 
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