What if the '68 Elections went to the House?

In 1968, the Dixiecrat segregationist George Wallace ran for president under the American Independent Party ticket. His main objective was not to become president as a few misunderstand. He knew such a campaign would be doomed to fail. Instead, he sought to achieve two goals:

1. Gain the electoral college votes of the southern states

2. Divide the conservative vote in the northern states, thus letting Hubert Humphrey win key states by pluralities.

If everything went according to plan, no candidate would gain the needed 270 votes to win the electoral college. The election would go the House, where he could broker a deal with one of the other candidates to give them the needed votes from the Southern state delegations in exchange for an end to federal efforts toward desegregation.

Let's play with this scenario: Say, Wallace managed to run a more effective campaign, and he wins the states of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Georgia, as he did IOTL. But he also wins the states of Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee. In addition, he manages to gnab just enough voters from Nixon in Missouri to allow Humphrey to gain the state by a plurality. The electoral college would be divided between Nixon with 244 votes, Humphrey with 203 votes and Wallace with 91 votes. With no one winning the minimum 270 votes, the election goes to the House.

What would happen next? Obviously no one's going to elect Wallace for president, but would Nixon or Humphrey be willing to cater to Wallace's demands in exchange for the presidency?
 
Nixon would have to be the one to do it. Humphrey was too liberal. Either one's presidency would be DOA if they took the deal, but only Nixon could conceivably do it
 
There would be no deal. Democrats controlled a majority of House delegations - and I don't see the Southern Democrats in the House electing Nixon (they are still Democrats, and Nixon supported Civil Rights). More likely, the Southern Congressional delegations put the screws on Humphrey in terms of cabinet appointments.
 
Democrats controlled a majority of House delegations - and I don't see the Southern Democrats in the House electing Nixon (they are still Democrats, and Nixon supported Civil Rights).

If LBJ was able to strong arm Southern Dems into voting for liberal legislation, you bet he would do the same in order to elect Humphrey.
 
There would be no deal. Democrats controlled a majority of House delegations - and I don't see the Southern Democrats in the House electing Nixon (they are still Democrats, and Nixon supported Civil Rights). More likely, the Southern Congressional delegations put the screws on Humphrey in terms of cabinet appointments.
Why would Southern democratic congressmen loyally follow party line while having constituents who at this point, have voted against Democrats in the past two elections, and when said congressmen IOTL would eventually defect to the GOP anyway? Voting for Humphrey would lose the patience of their constituents, and would be acting against their own ideological beliefs if Nixon has signaled he's willing to compromise on desegregation with Wallace.
 

Calbin

Banned
Why would Southern democratic congressmen loyally follow party line while having constituents who at this point, have voted against Democrats in the past two elections, and when said congressmen IOTL would eventually defect to the GOP anyway? Voting for Humphrey would lose the patience of their constituents, and would be acting against their own ideological beliefs if Nixon has signaled he's willing to compromise on desegregation with Wallace.
Because the majority of southern democratic politicians were party men (with some notable exceptions)
 
Wallace planned to make the deal before Great Electors's vote, to allow Independent Electors to elect who, between Nixon and Humphrey, would agree with him. So no House vote and no Democratic delegations split.
 
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