redlightning
Banned
What if instead of Robert Kennedy being shot in 1968, Richard Nixon is targeted instead and either significantly wounded or assassinated?
My guess is George Romney ends up getting the nomination as a compromise when Reagan and Rockefeller deadlock the convention. Romney won't perform as well as Nixon, but 1968 was a weird year. Nixon won big in the electoral college, but the popular vote was a squeaker. If Romney does worse than Nixon, but still not terrible, we could have a scenario where Romney wins the electoral college even though Humphrey wins the popular vote. If Romney does even worse than that, we could see nobody winning a majority of the electoral college, which is George Wallace's dream scenario because now he can dangle his electoral votes as a prize if anybody wants to renounce the Civil Rights Act. Neither Romney or Humphrey would take him up on it, but he'd try.
Would either party even accept Wallace's Electoral votes in such a scenario? It could evoke something similar to an 'Adams-Clay corrupt bargain' and then the losing party would claim that the democratic process was subverted. Plus, accepting George Wallace's electoral votes could be a poison pill, especially for the Democrats, as it would be seen as selling ones soul to the segregationist to gain victory.