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 Results by county Johnson: 40-50% 50-60% McCarthy: 40-50% 50-60% | |||||||||||||||||||
The 1968 New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary was held on March 12, 1968, in New Hampshire as one of the Democratic Party's statewide nomination contests ahead of the 1968 United States presidential election.
President Lyndon Johnson, who had not officially entered the race for president, won the primary, but finished with a surprisingly low total of 49%. [1] [2] Eugene McCarthy, then a little-known senator from Minnesota, won 42% of the primary vote. McCarthy's strong showing gave his campaign legitimacy and momentum. [3] In addition, McCarthy's superior coordination led to a near sweep of the state's twenty-four pledged delegates. Since Johnson had no formal campaign organization, a number of competing pro-Johnson delegate candidates split his vote, allowing McCarthy to take twenty delegates.
On March 16, 1968, four days after the New Hampshire primary, Robert F. Kennedy announced his candidacy. [4] On March 31, 1968, President Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection. [5] Vice President Hubert Humphrey went on to be nominated after Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in June. [6]
| Elections in New Hampshire |
|---|
 |
This primary election was a nonbinding vote and described as being a "Presidential preference poll". [7]
| Candidate [7] | Number of votes | % of the vote |
|---|---|---|
| Lyndon B. Johnson | 27,243 | 49.4% |
| Eugene McCarthy | 23,280 | 42.2% |
| Richard Nixon | 2,529 | 4.6% |
| Robert F. Kennedy | 600 | 1.1% |
| Nelson Rockefeller | 248 | 0.4% |
| George C. Wallace | 197 | 0.4% |
| Other candidates | 1,089 | 1.9% |
| Total | 55,186 | 100% |
The 1968 United States presidential election was the 46th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1968. The Republican nominee, former vice president Richard Nixon, defeated both the Democratic nominee, incumbent vice president Hubert Humphrey, and the American Independent Party nominee, former Alabama governor George Wallace.
The 1968 Democratic National Convention was held August 26–29 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Earlier that year incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson had announced he would not seek reelection, thus making the purpose of the convention to select a new presidential nominee for the Democratic Party. Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine were nominated for president and vice president, respectively.
Eugene Joseph McCarthy was an American politician, writer, and academic from Minnesota. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the United States Senate from 1959 to 1971. McCarthy sought the Democratic presidential nomination in the 1968 election, challenging incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson on an anti-Vietnam War platform. McCarthy unsuccessfully ran for U.S. president four more times.
The New Hampshire presidential primary is the first in a series of nationwide party primary elections and the second party contest, the first being the Iowa caucuses, held in the United States every four years as part of the process of choosing the delegates to the Democratic and Republican national conventions which choose the party nominees for the presidential elections to be held in November. Although only a few delegates are chosen in the New Hampshire primary, its real importance comes from the massive media coverage it receives, along with the first caucus in Iowa.
The Dump Johnson movement was a movement within the United States Democratic Party to oppose the candidacy of President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson to become the party's nominee in the 1968 presidential election. Their opposition to Johnson stemmed mainly from their opposition to the Vietnam War, while the movement can be seen as part of an internal battle within the Democratic Party between antiwar liberals, unreconstructed Cold Warriors and moderates.
A brokered convention, in US politics, can occur during a presidential election when a political party fails to choose a nominee on the first round of delegate voting at the party's nominating convention.
The Robert F. Kennedy presidential campaign began on March 16, 1968, when Kennedy, a United States Senator from New York, mounted an unlikely challenge to incumbent Democratic United States President Lyndon B. Johnson. Following an upset in the New Hampshire primary, Johnson announced on March 31 that he would not seek re-election to a second full term. Kennedy still faced two rival candidates for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination: the leading challenger United States Senator Eugene McCarthy and Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey had entered the race after Johnson's withdrawal, but Kennedy and McCarthy remained the main challengers to the policies of the Johnson administration. During the spring of 1968, Kennedy led a leading campaign in presidential primary elections throughout the United States. Kennedy's campaign was especially active in Indiana, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, California, and Washington, D.C. After declaring victory in the California primary on June 4, 1968, Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He died on June 6, 1968 at Good Samaritan Hospital. Had Kennedy been elected president, he would have been the first brother of a former U.S. president to win the presidency himself.
From January 24 to June 20, 1972, voters of the Democratic Party chose its nominee for president in the 1972 United States presidential election. Senator George McGovern of South Dakota was selected as the nominee through a series of primary elections, caucuses, and state party conventions, culminating in the 1972 Democratic National Convention held from July 10 to July 13, 1972, in Miami, Florida.
The 1968 presidential campaign of Eugene McCarthy was launched by United States Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota in the latter part of 1967 to vie for the 1968 Democratic Party nomination for president of the United States. The focus of his campaign was his support for a swift end to the Vietnam War through a withdrawal of American forces. The campaign appealed to youths who were tired of the establishment and dissatisfied with government.
From March 8 to June 7, 1960, voters and members of the Democratic Party elected delegates to the 1960 Democratic National Convention through a series of caucuses, conventions, and primaries, partly for the purpose of nominating a candidate for President of the United States in the 1960 election. The presidential primaries were inconclusive, as several of the leading contenders did not enter them, but U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts emerged as the strongest candidate and won the nomination over Lyndon B. Johnson at the convention, held from July 11 to 15 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.
From March to July 1968, Democratic Party voters elected delegates to the 1968 Democratic National Convention for the purpose of selecting the party's nominee for president in the upcoming election. Delegates, and the nominee they were to support at the convention, were selected through a series of primary elections, caucuses, and state party conventions. This was the last time that state primary elections formed a minority of the selection process, as the McGovern–Fraser Commission, which issued its recommendations in time for the 1972 Democratic Party presidential primaries, would dramatically reform the nomination process to expand the use of popular primaries rather than caucuses.
On June 5, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, and pronounced dead the following day.
Robert Francis Kennedy, also known by his initials RFK, was an American politician and lawyer. He served as the 64th United States attorney general from January 1961 to September 1964, and as a U.S. senator from New York from January 1965 until his assassination in June 1968, when he was running for the Democratic presidential nomination. Like his brothers John F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, he was a prominent member of the Democratic Party and is considered an icon of modern American liberalism.
Electoral history of Eugene McCarthy, United States Senator (1959–1971) and Representative (1949–1959) from Minnesota. He was a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.
The 1968 presidential campaign of Hubert Humphrey began when Hubert Humphrey, the 38th and incumbent Vice President of the United States, decided to seek the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States on April 27, 1968, after incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson withdrew his bid for reelection to a second full term on March 31, 1968, and endorsed him as his successor. Johnson withdrew after an unexpectedly strong challenge from anti-Vietnam War presidential candidate, Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, in the early Democratic primaries. McCarthy, along with Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York, became Humphrey's main opponents for the nomination. Their "new politics" contrasted with Humphrey's "old politics" as the increasingly unpopular Vietnam War intensified.
The selection of the Democratic Party's vice presidential candidate for the 1964 United States presidential election occurred at the party's national convention and resulted in the selection of Hubert Humphrey to join the ticket with President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was running for election to a full term. Humphrey would go on to become the Democratic presidential nominee in 1968 but ultimately lost to former Vice President Richard Nixon in the general election.
From January 23 to June 8, 2024, presidential primaries and caucuses were organized by the Democratic Party to select the delegates to the 2024 Democratic National Convention, to determine the party's nominee for president in the 2024 United States presidential election. The elections took place in all U.S. states, the District of Columbia, five U.S. territories, and Democrats Abroad.
The 1964 presidential campaign of Lyndon B. Johnson was a successful campaign for Johnson and his running mate Hubert Humphrey for their election as president and vice president of the United States. They defeated Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater and vice presidential nominee William Miller. Johnson, a Democrat and former vice president under John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as president upon Kennedy's assassination. In 1964, Johnson did not look optimistically upon the prospect of being elected president in his own right. Despite Johnson's uncertainty about running, he was seen as the most likely candidate to get the nomination. He entered the primaries starting with New Hampshire and won the state by almost 29,000 votes. Johnson's main opponent in the primaries was Alabama Governor George Wallace, who had announced his intention to seek the presidency even before Kennedy's assassination.
On March 31, 1968, then-incumbent US President Lyndon B. Johnson made a surprise announcement during a televised address to the nation that began around 9 p.m., declaring that he would not seek re–election for another term and was withdrawing from the 1968 United States presidential election. Johnson stated, "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President."
