Talk Elections

In 1968 Nixon received 53% of the vote in Vermont and 52% in New Hampshire, but Maine gave Humphrey 55% of the vote! Then, four years later, Nixon won 64% in New Hampshire, 63% in Vermont and 61% of in Maine - which means all three states voted about the same.

What was up with 1968? I'm guessing it had to do with the fact that Edmund Muskie was the vice presidential candidate, and he was extremely popular here.

That's pretty much it, at least as far as I understand it.

This.




And welcome to te forum, soniquemd.   :)

I used to think the "home state" effect only really applied to presidents, but I guess it can apply to vice presidential picks as well - e.g. Jimmy Carter carrying Minnesota twice because of VP Walter Mondale.

It was just Muskie.

The home state effect for running mates used to be a lot more relevant than it is now. Carter carried Minnesota twice because it was one of the most reliably Democratic states in the country at that time. It was McGovern's second-best state.

Nate Silver looked into a bit. The vice presidential home state effect isn't as strong, but it is noticeable. Super popular incumbents (such as Muskie) can skew it even further.

I always thought it was probably because of Muskie.  If he hadn't been on the Dem ticket, my guess is that Nixon probably would have carried it, largely because he carried it in 1960 (but a lot of states switched from Nixon states in 1960 to Humphrey states in 1968 and from Kennedy states in 1960 to Nixon states in 1968).  I think Maryland, which was Spiro Agnew's home state (on the GOP ticket with Nixon) voted for Humphrey, too, however.  Interesting fact:  I have watched some of the Election Night 1968 coverage from NBC where Chet Huntley, after checking some of the scattered returns from Maine, stated that Wallace was leading there, when, in fact, Nixon was (and he didn't correct himself).  And speaking of Wallace, I find it interesting that Humphrey was able to carry Maine with Wallace splitting the Democratic vote (although Wallace probably wouldn't have been a very strong candidate there anyway.)  I think John Edwards was pretty popular as a Senator in North Carolina, but he couldn't deliver the state to John Kerry in '04.  Remember, too, that when Al Gore was the Dems' nominee for president in 2000, he lost in his own home state (Tennessee) as well as Clinton's home state (Arkansas).  If he had carried either of those states, he would have won (even without Florida).  Neither did Lloyd Bentsen help Dukakis carry Texas (but it was Bush I's home state anyway, so I have no idea why the Dems were under any impression that they would carry it).  I'd like to see more research on this, but this is based on what I've seen from looking at the election maps from various years.

And yet the same year Agnew couldn't carry Maryland for Nixon. But it was close.

Anyway, I agree with everyone else. It was Muskie.

3 words: Edmund Sixtus Muskie

Yeah, regionalism also used to be a lot stronger before the cultural impact of the Interstates really started to be felt. Cable TV and the Internet carried the process much further.

We can all agree that it was Edmund Muskie's influence on the ticket. In 1968, it was quite an odd electoral year. Humphrey and Muskie were both very popular in their home states and thus won them. Nixon and Agnew both lost theirs. Nixon claimed New York as his home in 1968, not California.