1968 without Wallace (user search)
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
May 14, 2024, 07:01:45 AM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  Presidential Elections - Analysis and Discussion
  Election What-ifs?
  Past Election What-ifs (US) (Moderator: Dereich)
  1968 without Wallace (search mode)
Pages: [1]
Author Topic: 1968 without Wallace  (Read 1384 times)
Lechasseur
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 10,793


Political Matrix
E: -0.52, S: 3.13

« on: July 07, 2018, 02:20:34 PM »

Wallace was taking a substantial number of Democrats earlier in the campaign. However, by election day he had bled most of these to Humphrey. Wallace did best among political independents, and wasn't performing that much better among Democrats than he was among Republicans when you control for state. (Indeed, in a number of states, such as Utah, Wallace was doing better in traditionally Republican areas than Democratic areas)

I recall seeing an estimate of how the Wallace vote would have split in a Condorcet winner paper from an university political science course. I believe the split was 70-30 in favor of Nixon.

Obviously if that is taken uniformly, Nixon wins in a landslide, taking all of the Wallace states, Texas, Maryland, and Washington. 391 EV to 147.


However, I doubt that breakdown would be equal everywhere. I imagine Wallace voters in the South would have broken heavier to Nixon than Wallace voters in the North.

About half of Wallace's votes came from the 11 states of the Old Confederacy. Let's be as uncharitable to Nixon's chances in the rest of the country as we can, and assume Southern Wallace voters would break 100% to Nixon. That would mean Wallace voters in the rest of the country would have broken 60-40 Humphrey.

Under this formula, Nixon gains Texas and the Wallace states. Humphrey picks up Ohio with a margin of victory under 0.1%.

Humphrey narrowly gains Missouri (but given Missouri's arguable status as "peripheral South", and Wallace's strong performance in the Bootheel, the most culturally Southern part of the state, this one is really debatable)

Nothing else flips. For Illinois to flip, Wallace supporters would have had to break over 2:1 for Humphrey. Not that it would have mattered if it did flip to Humphrey, since that would only put him at 230 EVs.

Considering Nixon would probably have a PV lead of 6% or so, it's hard to see how Humphrey wins. As for the map, my guess is that all things considered Nixon probably holds all of his states, takes all of the Wallace States and Texas. Some Northern States tighten, but it's not enough to matter on its own.

Good analysis. I agree
Logged
Pages: [1]  
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.02 seconds with 13 queries.