President Humphrey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1968#The_fall_campaign

The key states proved to be California, Ohio, and Illinois, all of which Nixon won by three percentage points or less.

As you can see from the map, if Humphrey had won California and another of those states he would have won the election by 257 to 235 electoral votes. So WI that happened?

1968_Electoral_Map.png
 
Humphrey needed 270 electoral votes to win the Presidency. Falling short of that, the election is thrown to Congress. The majority of state delegations in the House of Reps elect the next president. A simple majority of Senators elect the next Vice President (top two finishers thus no VP LeMay).
 
Your math is all wrong. There are 538 EVs after 1961, so 270 is the magic number. A good resource for US presidential results is http://uselections.org. I was a poli sci major and always found that site quite useful. They even do a "what if?" for the '68 election, where a swing of a few hundred thousand votes lets Humphrey win New Jersey, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri, thus granting him the presidency...
 
I thought he needed a plurality of the electoral votes, not a majority. In any case, have him win all 3 of those states if that's what it takes. Just put him in the White House.
 
Would winning a plurality popular vote have have made a difference had there been no majority in the Electoral college? If I recall correctly the margin was a around about half a million, certainly less than 1% in OTL.
 
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