WI McGovern loses California Primary

How does the 1972 Democratic National Convention play out differently if Humphrey beats McGovern in the California primary specifically? Looking at the ballots, 271 fewer delegates would, at the very least, be enough to deny McGovern a majority on the first ballot. What happens then? And if the outcome of the convention is changed, how does the general election play out?
 
Looking at the numbers, I don’t think anybody but McGovern could have gotten it.

If an Anybody but McGovern Movement came together around Scoop, he could probably secure the votes of everybody except Chisholm, unless he maybe picked her up as his VP.

Scoop may or may not have done better against Nixon. On one hand, he’s a lot more of a hardass and his personality matches Nixon’s, but on the other hand that won’t be enough to beat an incumbent president unless, through chaos theory, Watergate becomes an election issue rather than a second term issue for Nixon.

Humphrey, Wallace, Sanford, etc. could reasonably come together over Scoop IMO though, so it’d at least make the DNC interesting.
 
@LegionoftheUnitedStates Here's what I put together by way of Wikipedia -- first, that the California Primary in 1972 was winner take all, so that all 271 delegates went to McGovern with his 43.5% of the vote against Hubert Humphrey's 38.58%; second, that at the National Convention, McGovern got 1729 out of 3014 votes on the only ballot, giving him the nomination. My thought here is that if McGovern didn't have those 271 electors from California, he would fall short of necessary votes on the first ballot; assuming that I have this much right, I'm interested here in what happens after that.

@President Benedict Arnold What I don't get (about OTL) is how the delegates opposed to McGovern came together around Scoop Jackson of all people, when candidates like Hubert Humphrey and Edmund Muskie did so much better in the primaries; is it possible, if McGovern doesn't have the votes, for them to come together around someone else?
 
Well, a few thoughts on this. You would have had the McGovern forces trying to do what Humphrey did at the convention and eliminate the winner-take-all rule in the hope of wresting away the nomination. This would probably have gone nowhere and you probably have Humphrey (or some other candidate) going on to lose badly in the fall. The party was doomed to be split; even if McGovern was loyal to the nominee -- and he would have been as he was a party man -- he wouldn't have pulled along all of his supporters.

Now, going into '76, you have a myth existing that "we would have won if we nominated McGovern". That opens the door to a McGovern '76 campaign or someone acceptable to that wing of the party. I'd say it is very possible you wind up with a McGovern campaign in '76 going on to win, with McGovern retooling his image a bit during the intervening 4 years. Less the spokesman for the new left and more an honest prairie populist with a heroic war record.
 
What I don't get (about OTL) is how the delegates opposed to McGovern came together around Scoop Jackson of all people, when candidates like Hubert Humphrey and Edmund Muskie did so much better in the primaries; is it possible, if McGovern doesn't have the votes, for them to come together around someone else?

They may have gotten more votes, but Scoop had significantly more delegates than them. He was a distant second, but Wallace, Humphrey, etc. were even further from him in numbers.

He had a stronger hand to play in potential backroom negotiations with all of those delegates behind him.

Well, a few thoughts on this. You would have had the McGovern forces trying to do what Humphrey did at the convention and eliminate the winner-take-all rule in the hope of wresting away the nomination. This would probably have gone nowhere and you probably have Humphrey (or some other candidate) going on to lose badly in the fall. The party was doomed to be split; even if McGovern was loyal to the nominee -- and he would have been as he was a party man -- he wouldn't have pulled along all of his supporters.

Now, going into '76, you have a myth existing that "we would have won if we nominated McGovern". That opens the door to a McGovern '76 campaign or someone acceptable to that wing of the party. I'd say it is very possible you wind up with a McGovern campaign in '76 going on to win, with McGovern retooling his image a bit during the intervening 4 years. Less the spokesman for the new left and more an honest prairie populist with a heroic war record.

Oh, that could be even worse for the New Left. Replace Carter with McGovern seeming to embody the New Left? It'd be even worse when his presidency goes bad and its only his opponents who try to frame it that way.
 
@Apollo 20 So who does get the nomination in 1972; Humphrey?

That's a damn good question. Scoop had the second largest bloc of delegate votes, Wallace was third. Of course, with Humphrey winning California, he'd pick up another 271. It's possible you wind up with a very messy multi-ballot affair that leaves nobody happy. The outcome ultimately depends on what the McGovern delegates do.

Delegate vote for presidential nomination (poached from Wikipedia)

George McGovern – 1,729 (57.37%)[15]
Henry M. Jackson – 525 (17.42%)
George Wallace – 382 (12.67%)
Shirley Chisholm – 152 (5.04%)
Terry Sanford – 78 (2.59%)
Hubert Humphrey – 67 (2.22%)
Wilbur Mills – 34 (1.13%)
Edmund Muskie – 25 (0.83%)
Ted Kennedy – 13 (0.43%)
Wayne Hays – 5 (0.17%)
Eugene McCarthy – 2 (0.07%)
Ramsey Clark – 1 (0.03%)
Walter Mondale – 1 (0.03%)

Who's the compromise there? Maybe Sanford? Mondale? Someone else not there? It's not obvious. Humphrey would have an uphill climb, and the hawkish Jackson seems a non-starter with the McGovern people who still control a strong plurality of the delegates. It's a fascinating question that could be a TL of its own.
 
I kind of love the idea of an absolutet monstrous 1972 Convention as far as back channel dealing and stuff goes. That’d make for an amazing story and probably would end with a similar electora result.

I wonder what the long term affects on primary rules would be with such an outcome? They just changed them to a system less likely to be reduced to backroom dealing, and yet here it is, but maybe even worse this time.

If everybody can come together away from McGovern (who is the clear winner of the people’s vote even if he is a weak candidate) then are these rules really more fair?
 
If everybody can come together away from McGovern (who is the clear winner of the people’s vote even if he is a weak candidate) then are these rules really more fair?
OTOH, Humphrey did beat McGovern in the overall popular vote (OTL, and more so TTL); then again, unless he happens to be the candidate the Stop McGovern Movement rallies around, what you're talking about is still going to come to pass.
 
I kind of love the idea of an absolutet monstrous 1972 Convention as far as back channel dealing and stuff goes. That’d make for an amazing story and probably would end with a similar electora result.

I wonder what the long term affects on primary rules would be with such an outcome? They just changed them to a system less likely to be reduced to backroom dealing, and yet here it is, but maybe even worse this time.

If everybody can come together away from McGovern (who is the clear winner of the people’s vote even if he is a weak candidate) then are these rules really more fair?

You are likely to see another round of rules reforms designed to ensure that there is a pot of unpledged delegates to break any logjam. In other words, you get superdelegates a decade earlier than they came to be in OTL with the 1982 Hunt Commission.
 
Top