# 1968: Could LBJ have won if he stayed in the race? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [May 6, 2017, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009 "2017-05-06T15:27:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Reddy\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@Reddy\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reddy_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2017, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009/1 "2017-05-06T15:27:32Z")
I know LBJ wasn’t popular in '68, but as it was, the election was rather close even with his (less politically capable) surrogate being the nominee. I’m wondering if LBJ could pull out all the stops to win a narrow victory against Nixon in 1968? In the South, he’d have the advantage of being a native-born Southerner which Humphrey didn’t have, and while war and racial tension were on people’s minds, the economy was booming and people tend to vote with their wallets. Also, he’d have the incumbent-during-a-war advantage that Humphrey didn’t. What do you think? What would the election have looked like if Johnson/Humphrey had faced Nixon in November 1968? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2017, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009/2 "2017-05-06T15:55:27Z")
Probably not. Johnson was too closely tied to the war and that had become the defining issue of the election. Humphrey was only able to make it close because he was able to put some distance between his position and Johnson’s. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2017, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009/3 "2017-05-06T17:05:14Z")
Not at all. People were growing more and more dissatisfied with the Vietnam conflict and the rising death toll. Johnson was seen as the source of the problem, distrusted and disliked by the younger voters. Long up hill battle for him to win. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2017, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009/4 "2017-05-06T17:14:46Z")
See above. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2017, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009/5 "2017-05-06T18:12:37Z")
I agree that Johnson couldn’t have won, but it’s plausible that somebody other than Nixon would have won, due to butterfly-effect type events (most obviously, if RFK had been running against Johnson, he might have been in slightly different places at different times, and not been assassinated). I don’t think there’s any way to predict what the election would have looked like. ---
**Author:** ![john\_b\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@john\_b\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/john_b_2)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2017, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009/6 "2017-05-06T18:33:50Z")
Unlikely, but no one can say for sure. 1968 was a remarkable years politically, the most dramatic year for presidential politics in my lifetime. LBJ’s being a Southerner was an advantage in 1960, but by '68 his identification with the civil rights bills had made him unpopular in that part of the country, especially the eastern part of it, as his native state of Texas isn’t Deep South, and Johnson was as much a westerner and a “Texarkana” guy as a true Southerner of the Wallace-Thurmond kind. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2017, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009/7 "2017-05-06T20:50:28Z")
> [@Reddy\_Mercury](#): > > I know LBJ wasn’t popular in '68, but as it was, the election was rather close even with his (less politically capable) surrogate being the nominee. > > I’m wondering if LBJ could pull out all the stops to win a narrow victory against Nixon in 1968? In the South, he’d have the advantage of being a native-born Southerner which Humphrey didn’t have, and while war and racial tension were on people’s minds, the economy was booming and people tend to vote with their wallets. Also, he’d have the incumbent-during-a-war advantage that Humphrey didn’t. > > What do you think? What would the election have looked like if Johnson/Humphrey had faced Nixon in November 1968? Johnson pretty clearly thought he couldn’t and he was in far better position to judge than any of us. Even if Johnson somehow won the party nomination, I suspect there’d have been a third party anti-war candidate who’d have run as an independent. ---
**Author:** ![Patx2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/73ab20/32.png) [@Patx2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patx2)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2017, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009/8 "2017-05-07T00:35:34Z")
My daughter was just studying the Vietnam and post period in school a couple weeks ago. I was reviewing some of the material, and as it’s been said in other posts, no way. People were distrustful of the government and there was so much dissent about the war. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2017, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009/9 "2017-05-07T01:24:15Z")
Remember that George Wallace ran as a third-party candidate. The thing is, he was running as a third-party candidate [BEFORE Johnson pulled out of the race.](http://aipca.org/history.html) In the Johnson runs scenario, we must assume that Wallace stays in the race as a third-party candidate. Wallace still siphons Southern votes away from Johnson. Maybe Wallace doesn’t win five states anymore, but he still pulls enough Democratic votes to give those five states to Nixon. Even if Johnson had won all of Wallace’s 46 electoral votes, however, remember, Nixon received 301 electoral votes to Humphrey’s 191. Johnson would have had to swing 79 electoral votes. Even if Johnson beats Wallace in every state he still would have been more than 20 EV short. Looking at the vote by state, Johnson would have had to beat Nixon in either California, Illinois, Ohio individually, or some multi-state combination that Humphrey didn’t also win. At the same time, he would have had to either win a Southern state away from Wallace outright or else finish third so as not to hand the state to Nixon. It’s just an impossible combination to put together. ---
**Author:** ![john\_b\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@john\_b\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/john_b_2)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2017, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009/10 "2017-05-07T17:25:28Z")
Yes, though I think it’s unlikely for “blue dog” Democrats in the states likely to have voted for George Wallace to have simply turned around and gone for LBJ the liberal. By 1968 the country was divided over a host of issues, and party loyalty, while still strong locally, especially in the South, would have meant little in a presidential election. Also, a key factor in Johnson’s unpopularity everywhere by then was based on his Vietnam war policies, and Hubert Humphrey, who in the end did well, or well enough to narrow the final election results, had to swing left to gain younger voters, and even that was too little too late. Imagine LBJ in the same position. Donnybrook, I’d say. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2017, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009/11 "2017-05-07T23:49:56Z")
I think it’s unquestionable that Johnson would have won. He was the president. That still meant almost everything at the time. People were gobsmacked that he pulled out. Nobody thought he would lose. He pulled out because he couldn’t stand the hate. Hate would have continued but the party would have backed him and there wouldn’t have been the Democratic Convention with the party disintegrating on television to the tune of a riot. Humphrey never had a chance and yet he lost the popular vote by 0.7%. It’s hard to imagine that the actual sitting President couldn’t have picked up one more percent than the pathetic Veep. If Johnson had taken California, Illinois, and New Jersey - all basically Democratic states he lost by a small margin - he would have won the electoral vote. You really think people across the country were that anti-Vietnam? I lived though it. I can tell you they weren’t. They would have loved to vote for Johnson. ---
**Author:** ![Beren\_Erchamion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/90ced4/32.png) [@Beren\_Erchamion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beren_Erchamion)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009/12 "2017-05-08T01:18:05Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > California > [@](#): > > basically Democratic lolno not in 1968 California has only been reliably Democratic for the Presidency since the 1990s. From 1952 through 1988, California went for a Democrat exactly once. And that’s because Barry Goldwater was a gigantic fucking lunatic, and even then California’s vote was still _more_ Republican than the national average. Richard Nixon was an incredibly popular Republican Senator from California for a few years before he joined the Eisenhower ticket. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009/13 "2017-05-08T01:32:43Z")
> [@Beren\_Erchamion](#): > > Richard Nixon was an incredibly popular Republican Senator from California for a few years before he joined the Eisenhower ticket. The same Richard Nixon who had been a Senator for only two years before becoming Veep? The one who had lost the race for California Governor in 1962? The one who introduced Goldwater at the 1964 convention? The one who won California in 1968 by three percentage points? Johnson - who won by 1.3 million votes in 1964 - in full campaign mode would have swamped him in California. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009/14 "2017-05-08T01:57:38Z")
> [@Beren\_Erchamion](#): > > … because Barry Goldwater was a gigantic fucking lunatic … He was certainly portrayed that way by the press and television media. From what I’ve been able to determine, he was a very decent man. I’m not so sure the same can be said for Johnson. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009/15 "2017-05-08T07:24:04Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > If Johnson had taken California, Illinois, and New Jersey - all basically Democratic states As \*\*Beren Erchamion \*\*pointed out, this is way off for that era. Go [here](http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html) and then click on “_Election Results_”. Start at 1952 and go up. You’ll see the trend for those states during that point of history. Johnson was doomed. He pissed off the south and escalated an already extremely unpopular war that was using conscription to fight it. Even without Wallace running, even if he turned a few swing states there still was absolutely no way he could have won in '68. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009/16 "2017-05-08T08:31:14Z")
I believe Johnson’s decision not to run is in itself telling. Im assuming Johnson’s level of narcissism was similar to any other major politician before and since. These people don’t quit unless they see the writing on the wall, and even then they often refuse to see the writing. I’ll take Johnson’s own decision not to run as evidence of his poor chance of winning in 68. Johnson knew more about 1960’s contemporary politics than everyone on SD combined. Sure, there is a chance he was wrong on _this_ occasion, but everything else being equal it is us who are wrong and Johnson who was correct. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009/17 "2017-05-08T09:55:23Z")
He’d has two heart attacks already (and died, what 3-4 years later). LBJ, the politician-extraordinaire, would have steamrolled Nixon. Incumbent had not be unseated at that time for nearly 40 years. How difficult would it have been for the man who made a moderate US Senator Goldwater look like a Monkey wanting a Machine Gun to do worse to Nixon. The guy who got the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and 1964 and the Voting Rights Act 1965 through in face of extreme opposition? From what I have read, his main reason for quitting was since he felt his health was no longer up to it and his family desperately wanted him to leave, for fear he would die of a third heart attack (which he in real life, did) ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009/18 "2017-05-08T10:25:55Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > I agree that Johnson couldn’t have won, but it’s plausible that somebody other than Nixon would have won, due to butterfly-effect type events (most obviously, if RFK had been running against Johnson, he might have been in slightly different places at different times, and not been assassinated). I don’t think there’s any way to predict what the election would have looked like. Not long after the election, I remember reading an opinion piece asserting that Eugene McCarthy would have beaten Nixon. He staunchly opposed the Vietnam War, and had more credibility on that stance than did Johnson’s veep (Humphrey). ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009/19 "2017-05-08T13:01:46Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > Not long after the election, I remember reading an opinion piece asserting that Eugene McCarthy would have beaten Nixon. He staunchly opposed the Vietnam War, and had more credibility on that stance than did Johnson’s veep (Humphrey). There was no way in hell McCarthy could have won. He was very much a fringe candidate (I was there and was one of his supporters.) If RFK had lived I think McCarthy would have dropped out of the race. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009/20 "2017-05-08T15:21:15Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > As \*\*Beren Erchamion \*\*pointed out, this is way off for that era. > > Go [here](http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html) and then click on “_Election Results_”. Start at 1952 and go up. You’ll see the trend for those states during that point of history. > > Johnson was doomed. He pissed off the south and escalated an already extremely unpopular war that was using conscription to fight it. Even without Wallace running, even if he turned a few swing states there still was absolutely no way he could have won in '68. And if you look at 1960, you’ll see that Kennedy won both New Jersey and Illinois and that home boy Nixon won California by all of 35,000 votes. In 1964 Johnson carried those states by over 3,000,000 votes. A sufficiency of the people that voted for Johnson in 1964 would have stuck with him. Vietnam would have been lessened as an issue. Nixon, we know now, committed [treason](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/31/opinion/sunday/nixons-vietnam-treachery.html?_r=0). > [@](#): > > Richard M. Nixon always denied it: to David Frost, to historians and to Lyndon B. Johnson, who had the strongest suspicions and the most cause for outrage at his successor’s rumored treachery. To them all, Nixon insisted that he had not sabotaged Johnson’s 1968 peace initiative to bring the war in Vietnam to an early conclusion. “My God. I would never do anything to encourage” South Vietnam “not to come to the table,” Nixon told Johnson, in a conversation captured on the White House taping system. > > Now we know Nixon lied. Is that in any way imaginable if Johnson were his opponent? Remember that Humphrey was closing the gap (“After President Johnson announced a halt of the bombing of North Vietnam on October 30, 1968, Humphrey surged ahead of Nixon in some polls, where days before they had been in a dead heat.”) before Nixon pulled this stunt, which is the original [October Surprise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_surprise), although it wasn’t called that then. I’m giving all the states Wallace won to Wallace, because Johnson didn’t need them. All Johnson needed was the be the sitting President. Most people would have voted for him \*because \*of the protests, and we know that because they voted that way for Nixon - who couldn’t get elected governor of his own state. Both sides on this are avoiding all the other variables that would have changed in 1968, a year of such surprises and convulsions that it wasn’t remotely predictable living through it, let alone with a major counterfactual thrown in. Johnson was a master politician and would have been up against an opponent nobody liked. And he was the sitting President who took over from the martyred Kennedy, whose picture still hung in most Democratic homes. Voting for Nixon over Humphrey was one thing; voting for Nixon over Johnson quite another. I don’t have to posit another landslide. All I need to claim is that President Johnson would have picked up a few percent more of the vote than Vice-President Humphrey. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1968-could-lbj-have-won-if-he-stayed-in-the-race/786009.md?page=2)