Did Wallace torpedo Nixon's "Southern Strategy" in 68?

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Don't know a great deal about the election, but giving it a superficial glance this seems obviously the case. Nixon almost managed to bungle what should have been a gimme election thanks to Wallace stealing the conservative law and order voters his campaign was targeting. Imagine an alternate universe where the Vietnam peace talks don't collapse and Humphrey squeaks out a win, and the strategy goes down in history as an epic failure by Nixon.

I guess it wasn't until Reagan in 1980 that the Southern Strategy actually bore fruit for the GOP.

[Alben Barkley]

Nixon did manage to win the upper South, Florida, and South Carolina (a Goldwater state). Wallace only won the rest of the Deep South and Arkansas. Nonetheless, the election marked a continuation of the GOP’s gains in the South, already seen in 1964 when Goldwater swept the Deep South. Winning several Southern states, getting at least 30% of the vote in most of them even with Wallace on the ballot, and outperforming Humphrey in most of them as well was a significant improvement for a Republican in the South, even just compared to Nixon’s own performance in 1960.

And in the last election in which Dixiecrats ran a serious third party candidate, 1948, every Southern state either voted for their candidate (Thurmond) or for Truman. None voted Republican. Clearly things had changed a lot over the past 20 years, most rapidly within just the past decade, and Nixon helped make sure they would stay that way. Certainly he cleaned up in the South in 1972.

1976 was an unusual regression to the Democrats for the South that was only possible due to a number of factors: Watergate, Carter was a perfect Southern candidate, Ford was a Yankee moderate who wasn’t a good cultural fit for the South, and racial issues were no longer front and center. In fact, if you were a conservative evangelical in the South in 1976, you were liable to actually prefer Carter to Ford for these reasons. Reagan’s conservative “revolution” and alliance with the Religious Right changed all that, though. Democrats would be crippled in the South for quite some time. Even Clinton only was consistently strong in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Appalachia. And by 2000 even those states had turned on the Democrats, even with another Southern candidate in Gore.

Basically I would say that the seeds were certainly planted for the Republican takeover of the South by 1964, Nixon poured water on them, and by the time Reagan came around the strategy was definitely bearing fruit indeed. Ford/Carter was just a bit of an anomaly, and in 1968 Wallace only did well because he was an actual Southerner running farther to the right than Nixon. If it was just Nixon vs. Humphrey, though, you can bet Nixon would have swept the South like he did in 1972 and very much unlike 1960.

Also, Nixon's “law and order” campaign wasn’t just designed to appeal to Southern conservatives. It was designed to appeal nationwide to a US that was in turmoil over the rapid cultural change and intense conflict that had occurred in the 60s. A lot of people were sick of it all and were pleased a familiar face like Nixon was promising to set everything straight.

[darklordoftech]

In the states Wallace won, yes. In the southern states Nixon won, no.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Reagan didnt do that great in the South either, he won the South by significantly  less than he did nationally and still did pretty bad in the rural south.

[Chester County Anti-populist]

Reagan didnt do that great in the South either, he won the South by significantly  less than he did nationally and still did pretty bad in the rural south.

This is true. Carter would have probably won a few southern states if he wasn't completely destroyed with suburban whites.

[MIKESOWELL]

Your looking at 1968 through a modern lens. In 1968, the GOP was still the minority party in the South, although they had been making inroads there since the early 1950s. Eight years earlier, Nixon was competing with Kennedy for the black vote. Nixon's Southern Strategy really paid off in 1972, and after the Jimmy Carter aberration, for the GOP in general from 1980 onwards, starting from the presidential level downwards.

[Wazza [INACTIVE]]

Reagan didnt do that great in the South either, he won the South by significantly  less than he did nationally and still did pretty bad in the rural south.

“But dude county level results don’t matter le state shape is painted red on le map!”

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

(Some smart Republican posters have explained this more thoroughly in other threads)

I think that without Wallace on the ballot, likely someone else would have put up another segregationist option. The only way this would not have been the case, in my view, is if Nixon had run further to the right and pulled a Goldwater. The fact is if Nixon had pulled a Goldwater, he would have lost, probably not destroyed like Goldwater, but still lost.
So in some sense the Southern Strategy benefited from Wallace.
Although I guess you could say that Wallace almost torpedoed Nixon by running a national campaign and stealing some law-and-order votes up North.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Looking at 1968 as a continuation of 1964, is really inaccurate. To best understand Nixon's strategy you have to read Kevin Phillip's "Emerging Republican Majority".

1968 was a continuation of the process that started in 1948, and that was to absorb the Thurmond "Conservative" wing of the Democratic Party in the South as this shared most everything in common with the Republicans (FP, hostility to the New Deal and so forth), and the only reason they had remained Democrats was race as they saw Democrats as they only means by which to assert themselves and maintain control. The problem is that you have to win them without appearing to be crossing the lines. This is my analogy not Phillips, of Goldwater's strategy amount to crossing the lines, putting on a grey uniform and waving the Confederate flag. This was not going to fly in the border states where the GOP depended on unionist mountain support, much less in the rest of the country.

That is where tough on crime comes in as the perfect message to unify the Republican base in the suburbs of the Midwest and West with the "emerging ones" in the suburbs of the South. This way they could still come off as the party of Lincoln to those for whom such made themselves feel better about it while at the same time throwing enough of a bone to the Thurmond vote to make them vote Republican (this is where the 30% comes from naturally as well as the narrow SC win) based off the rest of the issue pie.

To the less conservative, more populist rural areas though, this was not enough and that is why Nixon lost this vote to Wallace. Remember Wallace himself had been "out-segged" in the 1950's and was determined to not let that happen again. Furthermore, going all out on race and segregation was the standard tool for the "business/conservative" wing to survive in primaries dominated by poor farmers on the state level (though obviously low turnout and jim crow voting restrictions skewed these elections to the wealthy it didn't lead to complete domination outside of the black belt and urban areas where most all of the poor were blacks thus creating the most extreme wealth skew in such places). However, Nixon couldn't go as far as Goldwater much less as far as Wallace so they were kind of screwed in the rural areas, though Nixon did win the Southern suburbs according to the exit polls if memory serves me and those places along with low country would become the GOP base over the coming decades, and be the first areas to flip down ballot.

[Sumner 1868]

Reagan didnt do that great in the South either, he won the South by significantly  less than he did nationally and still did pretty bad in the rural south.

“But dude county level results don’t matter le state shape is painted red on le map!”

Anyone who does even a basic look at past Census records can see that throughout the South many white-majority counties voted for Carter even though Reagan won the white vote in those counties. This is especially true in Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Reagan didnt do that great in the South either, he won the South by significantly  less than he did nationally and still did pretty bad in the rural south.

“But dude county level results don’t matter le state shape is painted red on le map!”

Anyone who does even a basic look at past Census records can see that throughout the South many white-majority counties voted for Carter even though Reagan won the white vote in those counties. This is especially true in Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina.

When you dominate a minority group of substantial size (say 30 to 35% of the total) to the point of basically winning all of them, you only need to win a quarter or just over a quarter of the remainder to win. The same dynamics apply though with the numbers shifting proportionally for groups that you dominate by a lesser degree like say Republicans winning 80% of white Evangelicals today.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Reagan didnt do that great in the South either, he won the South by significantly  less than he did nationally and still did pretty bad in the rural south.

“But dude county level results don’t matter le state shape is painted red on le map!”

Anyone who does even a basic look at past Census records can see that throughout the South many white-majority counties voted for Carter even though Reagan won the white vote in those counties. This is especially true in Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina.

But the margins Reagan won the white vote in the rural south was still much much less than suburban south

[darklordoftech]

Looking at 1968 as a continuation of 1964, is really inaccurate. To best understand Nixon's strategy you have to read Kevin Phillip's "Emerging Republican Majority".

1968 was a continuation of the process that started in 1948, and that was to absorb the Thurmond "Conservative" wing of the Democratic Party in the South as this shared most everything in common with the Republicans (FP, hostility to the New Deal and so forth), and the only reason they had remained Democrats was race as they saw Democrats as they only means by which to assert themselves and maintain control. The problem is that you have to win them without appearing to be crossing the lines. This is my analogy not Phillips, of Goldwater's strategy amount to crossing the lines, putting on a grey uniform and waving the Confederate flag. This was not going to fly in the border states where the GOP depended on unionist mountain support, much less in the rest of the country.

That is where tough on crime comes in as the perfect message to unify the Republican base in the suburbs of the Midwest and West with the "emerging ones" in the suburbs of the South. This way they could still come off as the party of Lincoln to those for whom such made themselves feel better about it while at the same time throwing enough of a bone to the Thurmond vote to make them vote Republican (this is where the 30% comes from naturally as well as the narrow SC win) based off the rest of the issue pie.

To the less conservative, more populist rural areas though, this was not enough and that is why Nixon lost this vote to Wallace. Remember Wallace himself had been "out-segged" in the 1950's and was determined to not let that happen again. Furthermore, going all out on race and segregation was the standard tool for the "business/conservative" wing to survive in primaries dominated by poor farmers on the state level (though obviously low turnout and jim crow voting restrictions skewed these elections to the wealthy it didn't lead to complete domination outside of the black belt and urban areas where most all of the poor were blacks thus creating the most extreme wealth skew in such places). However, Nixon couldn't go as far as Goldwater much less as far as Wallace so they were kind of screwed in the rural areas, though Nixon did win the Southern suburbs according to the exit polls if memory serves me and those places along with low country would become the GOP base over the coming decades, and be the first areas to flip down ballot.

However, Wallace won almost all counties in the states he won. Nixon didn’t win a single county in Alabama, Mississipi, or Louisiana and only one a few northern counties in Georgia.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Looking at 1968 as a continuation of 1964, is really inaccurate. To best understand Nixon's strategy you have to read Kevin Phillip's "Emerging Republican Majority".

1968 was a continuation of the process that started in 1948, and that was to absorb the Thurmond "Conservative" wing of the Democratic Party in the South as this shared most everything in common with the Republicans (FP, hostility to the New Deal and so forth), and the only reason they had remained Democrats was race as they saw Democrats as they only means by which to assert themselves and maintain control. The problem is that you have to win them without appearing to be crossing the lines. This is my analogy not Phillips, of Goldwater's strategy amount to crossing the lines, putting on a grey uniform and waving the Confederate flag. This was not going to fly in the border states where the GOP depended on unionist mountain support, much less in the rest of the country.

That is where tough on crime comes in as the perfect message to unify the Republican base in the suburbs of the Midwest and West with the "emerging ones" in the suburbs of the South. This way they could still come off as the party of Lincoln to those for whom such made themselves feel better about it while at the same time throwing enough of a bone to the Thurmond vote to make them vote Republican (this is where the 30% comes from naturally as well as the narrow SC win) based off the rest of the issue pie.

To the less conservative, more populist rural areas though, this was not enough and that is why Nixon lost this vote to Wallace. Remember Wallace himself had been "out-segged" in the 1950's and was determined to not let that happen again. Furthermore, going all out on race and segregation was the standard tool for the "business/conservative" wing to survive in primaries dominated by poor farmers on the state level (though obviously low turnout and jim crow voting restrictions skewed these elections to the wealthy it didn't lead to complete domination outside of the black belt and urban areas where most all of the poor were blacks thus creating the most extreme wealth skew in such places). However, Nixon couldn't go as far as Goldwater much less as far as Wallace so they were kind of screwed in the rural areas, though Nixon did win the Southern suburbs according to the exit polls if memory serves me and those places along with low country would become the GOP base over the coming decades, and be the first areas to flip down ballot.

However, Wallace won almost all counties in the states he won. Nixon didn’t win a single county in Alabama, Mississipi, or Louisiana and only one a few northern counties in Georgia.

Nixon did well in Atlanta metro:


Poor populist whites exist everywhere, but rich and middle class ones during this period are concentrated in the suburbs/urban areas. This means that there is a gradient of support that is noticeable even in those states you mention.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_United_States_presidential_election#Voter_demographics_in_the_South

[Del Tachi]

Compared to 1960, Nixon only flipped the Carolinas.  Wallace was much more a spoiler to Humphrey in states like OH and IL than he was to Nixon in the Deep South.

[RINO Tom]

I am no expert on this, but I will add my two cents.  For one, Wallace obviously took SOME votes from Nixon ... it's unclear how many of his (previously Democratic) votes would have stayed with Humphrey, and many Democrats will slam the door in the face of that conversation, though I think wondering about it is with merit.

As far as Nixon, I remember reading a quote he made one time along the lines of, "We knew we couldn't reach the 'Wallace voter,' but we were going for the Southerners who became suspicious with the national Democrats long ago."  This indicates that Nixon was largely targeting Southern suburbanites who had been open to Eisenhower.  This seems reinforced by the fact that Nixon never really appealed to any voters as the "successor" of the Dixiecrats and mostly focused on upper-middle class concerns like busing.

[Del Tachi]

I suppose in a some purely hypothetical two-way race, Nixon would have won over most of Wallace's voters in the South, but the fact that Wallace ran and did so well with this group shows that there wasn't some great effort by Republicans to appeal to them.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I suppose in a some purely hypothetical two-way race, Nixon would have won over most of Wallace's voters in the South, but the fact that Wallace ran and did so well with this group shows that there wasn't some great effort by Republicans to appeal to them.

Its flat out stated by Kevin Phillips in contrasting Goldwater with Nixon's approach and if you look at the collapse of the GOP with traditional bastions in the South for gains in the black belt that Goldwater managed (a declining voting power since the VRA would destroy this political base for obvious reasons), was a losing strategy then and even more so going forward.

Nixon's only path was to be the "lesser of two evils" on race issues and let them naturally default his way against the more problematic Humphrey. With Wallace in the mix, their just wasn't a good way to absorb those voters without alienating the rest of the Nixonian base.