What if George Wallace hadn't been shot in 1972?

I don't think he would've won the Dem nomination, but if he had, Nixon would've trounced Wallace badly. Nixon might've even become the first Republican to carry D.C.
 

Japhy

Banned
The most likely course of action you could get with Wallace is the VP slot on a ticket, and to do that you need someone who's not HHH or McGovern, probably Ed Muskie. But theres a chance Wallace's appeal to Northern Bluecollar Workers could help him win momentum if other candidates play up the "McGovern is Crazy" card to full effect.

And then there's the chance, that the Left-Democrats might split and run a third party. (Maverick did that in the President Wayne TL where Wallace was the '72 Nominee), that or Liberal Democrats staying home in disgust makes it more likely that Nixon would win.
 
Wallace will not win the Democratic nomination. He can win many primaries, including Midwestern ones such as Michigan which will cause the Democratic establishment to pantshit. It will show that Wallace still has a strong blue-collar following and not just on race. The same thing happened in 1964 when Wallace nearly beat Indiana Gov. Matthew Walsh, a LBJ proxy, in Walsh's own home state with a formidable Democratic machine on Walsh's side. In 1968 Robert Kennedy locked up the blue-collar vote (including many Wallace voters) in the Democratic primaries and the Dems breathed easy. They didn't realize though not a few of those blue-collars who voted for RFK voted for Wallace over Nixon in November, in retrospect a warning sign for both the Democrats and Nixon. Wallace cannot win in the North, but he can be kingmaker and potentially cause a convention deadlock unless McGovern (the presumptive nominee by May 1972) makes concessions. That's not happening, but Wallace had already made arrangements with Nixon in January not to run third-party. If Wallace had run third-party, it would've dented Nixon's margin, but not enough to make a difference in the electoral vote.
 
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