1968: Switch Humphrey and Wallace

[badgate]

I've used this scenario idea a few times in maps on the "post random maps" thread. I think it's an interesting reversal and would be curious to see what other peoples' maps would be. I'll find and post mine here in a sec.

Edited to add: Pick your own VPs

[badgate]

This first map is from this series.

1968: Deadlocked Nation

Alabama Governor George Wallace / Kentucky Senator Happy Chandler - 145
Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater / Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton - 194
Minnesota Senator Hubert H. Humphrey / Maine Senator Edmund Muskie - 199


This second map is from this series, where Goldwater is elected over Bobby Kennedy in '64 less than a year after President Nixon is assassinated in Dallas..

1968

Alabama Governor George Wallace / Kentucky Senator Happy Chandler - 76
President Barry Goldwater / Vice President Norris Cotton - 355
Minnesota Senator Hubert H. Humphrey / Massachusetts Governor Endicott Peabody - 107

[badgate]

I've locked voting because it's the laziest way to participate in a thread, and I think y'all are capable of more.

[RodPresident]

A good what-if could be Wallace making an unholy alliance with anti-war progressives, like McCarthy and McGovern, while Kennedy sits out, endorsing him undercover in hope that he gets nomination and lose to support him on 72. With Southern support, he gets nomination.

[Thomas D]

Nixon- 241
Humphrey- 172
Wallace- 125

[NHLiberal]

I don't see any way in which an electoral college majority could have been reached by any candidate under these circumstances.

[VPH]

A good what-if could be Wallace making an unholy alliance with anti-war progressives, like McCarthy and McGovern, while Kennedy sits out, endorsing him undercover in hope that he gets nomination and lose to support him on 72. With Southern support, he gets nomination.

That would be a certain departure from Wallace's "bomb em to the table" mentality

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

In an upset at a bitterly divided convention, Alabama Governor George Wallace wins the Democratic nomination, and Humphrey walks out declaring an independent candidacy. Wallace picks KY Fmr. Gov. "Happy" Chandler for VP, to try to soldify his appeal in the Upper South while also reaching out a bit to the party's more liberal wing and attempting to shed some of his hard-line segregationist image for a national campaign.  But a divided Democratic Party makes Nixon look a more stable and appealing choice, and allows a Nixon landslide in the electoral college even while short of a majority - in a mirror of Wilson's victory in 1912. Humphrey comes in 2nd place in the popular vote, but with Wallace's concentrated Southern support plus taking a share of the traditional Democrat voters in the North, Humphrey comes in 3rd in the electoral college, with the largest share of support in states where he came in second to Nixon  -though 1 faithless elector in NC casts his vote for Humphrey.

Fmr. VP Richard Nixon (R-CA/NY) / Gov. Spiro Agnew (R-MD) 44% 413
Gov. George Wallace (D-AL) / Fmr. Gov. A.B. "Happy" Chandler (Democrat-KY) 25% 85
VP Herbert H. Humphrey (Ind. Dem.-MN) / Sen. Edmund Muskie (Ind. Dem.-ME) 31% 40

[President Johnson]

LBJ would have been the only person to beat Nixon 1968.