1968 United States presidential election in Indiana

1968 United States presidential election in Indiana

November 5, 1968
Turnout69.5% 2.2 pp
 
Nominee Richard Nixon Hubert Humphrey George Wallace
Party Republican Democratic American Independent
Home state New York Minnesota Alabama
Running mate Spiro Agnew Edmund Muskie Curtis LeMay
Electoral vote 13 0 0
Popular vote 1,067,885 806,659 243,108
Percentage 50.29% 37.99% 11.45%

County results

President before election

Lyndon B. Johnson
Democratic

Elected President

Richard Nixon
Republican

A presidential election was held in Indiana on November 5, 1968. The Republican ticket of the former vice president of the United States Richard Nixon and the governor of Maryland Spiro Agnew defeated the Democratic ticket of the incumbent vice president Hubert Humphrey and the junior U.S. senator from Maine Edmund Muskie. The American Independent ticket of the former governor of Alabama George Wallace and the chief of staff of the United States Air Force Curtis LeMay finished third. Nixon defeated Humphrey in the national election with 301 electoral votes.

Nixon ran unopposed in the May Republican primary, garnering just over half a million votes. The junior U.S. senator from New York Robert F. Kennedy won the Democratic primary with the overwhelming support of the state's Black voters. Kennedy's assassination a month later preceded the 1968 Democratic National Convention, which nominated Humphrey amidst protests against the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War.

Republicans were expected to flip Indiana four years after the Democratic landslide victory in 1964. Some polls showed Wallace running even with Humphrey in late October; however, by Election Day his share of the vote had fallen drastically, finishing at 11 percent. Wallace performed best in counties with large concentrations of Black voters, where white support for Wallace counterbalanced Black support for the Democratic ticket.

Nixon's victory was the first of ten consecutive Republican victories in the state, as Indiana would not vote for a Democratic candidate again until Barack Obama in 2008.