1968

[dunn]

A 4% swing outside the South would put New Jersey, Delaware (if that counts), Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri (if that counts), California and Alaska into the Democratic column.
That's 305 EVs against 187 (or 188) for Nixon, 46 (or 45) for Wallace.
290 without Missouri or Delaware.
A three point swing would throw the election into the House.

4% is a lot

A 4% percent swing in the sense that 2% of the population go from voting Republican to voting Democrat.

understood, still alot. in a trend like that bush-Dukakis would be instead of 426-111    306-231

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A three point swing would throw the election into the House.

Exactly what Wallace wanted...

[JohnFKennedy]

when Humphrey entered Democratic primary in 1960 he was viewed as very very liberal and had a strong liberal fanbase which was what hurt Kennedy and almost lost him the nomination.

[muon2]

when Humphrey entered Democratic primary in 1960 he was viewed as very very liberal and had a strong liberal fanbase which was what hurt Kennedy and almost lost him the nomination.

HHH entered too late to be a factor in the primaries. He was seen as the party regular compared to the "peace" candidates RFK and McCarthy. HHH got many of the delegates from party appointments not from primaries, though many RFK delegates moved to HHH after the assassination. It is often overlooked that McGovern entered the 68 race after the assassination (not just in 72) as yet another peace candidate.

I think that marks HHH as a comparative moderate in the eyes of voters in 68. No doubt his social agenda was liberal, but the war was the litmus test at that point in history.

Like most presidential elections, 68 was a referendum on the party in power, and RFK could not overcome the negatives for Democrats that year. If he survived he would have been a formidable candidate in 72 or 76.

[JohnFKennedy]

the post of mine you quoted referred to 1960 not 68 when he ran against JFK and lost, he ran as the liberal candidate while JFK was more moderate.

[Kevinstat]

As to how liberal Humphrey was, it might make a difference what year you're talking about.  He was certainly on the liberal end of the Democratic Party in 1960, but by 1972 he had both Edmund Muskie and George McGovern running to his left and George Wallace and probably Scoop Jackson running to his right.  When the contest for the Democratic nomination had whittled down to Humphrey, McGovern and Wallace, Humphrey was probably seen as the middle candidate of the three, and after Wallace was shot and left race Humphrey was the more conservative of the two candidates (at least in the standard that applied at the time, largely one's stance on the Vietnam War).  By that time the so-called "New Politics" had replaced Labor as the standard of being liberal.

I'm not very sure where Humphrey stood on a left-to-right spectrum in the public eye in the quest for the 1968 Democratic Nomination, but he was likely seen as being to the right of McCarthy and perhaps to the right of RFK since he was aligned with Johnson.  The actual reality of where he was in relation to other Democratic leaders, in 1960, 1968 and 1972, is debatable, but I’ve been talking about and appearance.  I wasn’t born until 1981, however, so what do I know?

Sincerely,

Kevin Lamoreau