Distribution of votes in the 1968 US presidential election
Vietnam War sentiment across the country, and Robert Kennedy (brother to the former President John F. Kennedy) was one of the frontrunners until his assassination in June, 1968, which cleared the way for Humphrey to win his party's nomination. Richard Nixon (vice president in the Eisenhower administration) faced opposition from Nelson Rockefeller (who had lost in the previous two Republican primaries) and Ronald Reagan who emerged late in the race. Although Reagan was the most popular candidate in the Republican primaries, taking the most popular votes, Nixon's success early in the campaign gave him the required number of delegates to take the Republican nomination. George Wallace ran for the AIP, who were a far-right party seeking to enforce racial segregation in the south.
The 1968 US presidential election was contested between Richard Nixon of the Republican Party, incumbent Vice-President Hubert Humphrey of the Democratic Party, and George Wallace of the newly-formed American Independent Party (AIP). Incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson withdrew from the Democratic race due to anti-