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 (12 states) 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.
After an inconclusive and tumultuous campaign focused on the Vietnam War, completely upheavaled by the June assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey was nominated at the 1968 Democratic National Convention held from August 26 to August 29, 1968, in Chicago, Illinois.
The campaign for the nomination began with incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson expected to win re-nomination for a second consecutive election, despite low approval ratings following the Tet Offensive in January 1968. His only significant challenger was Eugene McCarthy, an anti-war Senator from Minnesota. After McCarthy nearly won the New Hampshire primary on March 12, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, another critic of the war and the brother of the late President John F. Kennedy, entered the race on March 16. On March 31, Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election. In April, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey joined the race as the establishment candidate; he did not criticize the administration's conduct of the war and avoided the popular contests for delegates.
McCarthy and Kennedy traded primary victories while Humphrey collected delegates through the closed caucus and convention systems in place in most states. Many other delegates were selected without a formal commitment to support any particular candidate. The race was upended on June 5, the night of the California and South Dakota primaries. Both races went for Kennedy, but he was assassinated after his victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel. At the moment of his assassination, Kennedy trailed Humphrey in the pledged delegate count with McCarthy third. Without any obligation to vote for any candidate, most Kennedy delegates backed Humphrey over McCarthy or fell behind Kennedy supporter George McGovern.
At the convention, Humphrey secured the nomination easily despite anti-war riots outside the convention center; he went on to lose the presidential election to Richard Nixon. Humphrey would be the last Democratic nominee to be nominated despite not actively campaigning in the primaries until Kamala Harris in the 2024 United States presidential election.
Background
1960 and 1964 presidential elections
In 1960, John F. Kennedy won the Democratic nomination over Lyndon B. Johnson. After he secured the nomination at the party convention, Kennedy offered Johnson the vice presidential nomination; the offer was a surprise, and some Kennedy supporters claimed that the nominee expected Johnson to decline. Robert F. Kennedy, the nominee's brother and campaign manager, reportedly went to Johnson's hotel suite to dissuade Johnson from accepting. Johnson accepted, and the Kennedy-Johnson ticket was narrowly elected, but the 1960 campaign intensified the personal enmity between Robert F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, which dated to as early as 1953. President Kennedy named his brother to his cabinet as United States Attorney General.
President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963; Johnson succeeded him with tremendous national popularity amid a wave of mourning and sympathy. Robert Kennedy remained in the cabinet for several months, creating what Johnson staffers began to refer to as "the Bobby problem": despite the personal hatred between the two, Democratic voters overwhelmingly favored Kennedy as Johnson's running mate in the 1964 election. Kennedy began to plan for a nationwide campaign, and in the informal New Hampshire vice-presidential primary, Kennedy defeated Hubert H. Humphrey in a landslide.
In July 1964, Johnson issued an official statement ruling out any cabinet member for the vice presidency. In search of a way out of the dilemma, Kennedy asked speechwriter Milton Gwirtzman to write a memo comparing two offices: 1) governor of Massachusetts and 2) U.S. senator from New York, and "which would be a better place from which to make a run for the presidency in future years?" In September, Kennedy resigned as attorney general, and ran for and won election to the U.S. Senate. Johnson was elected in a landslide.
Vietnam War
United States involvement in the Vietnam War began shortly after the end of World War II. Beginning in 1964, President Johnson dramatically escalated American military presence after the Gulf of Tonkin incident. On the recommendation of General William C. Westmoreland, whom Johnson had appointed to command American troops in Vietnam, U.S. manpower in Southeast Asia expanded from 16,000 in 1964 to more than 553,000 by 1969.
As U.S. involvement escalated throughout 1964 to 1966, protests against the war escalated in proportion. Several anti-war groups were founded or expanded during the period.
1966 midterms and "Dump Johnson" movement
Amid criticism of U.S. handling of the war from both parties, President Johnson's approval rating sank from a high above 70 percent to below 40 percent by the 1966 midterm elections. The Democratic Party had already begun to split between anti-war "doves" and pro-war "hawks," and the Republican Party gained dozens of seats in Congress.
As opposition grew in 1967, anti-war Democrats led by Allard Lowenstein and Curtis Gans formed the Dump Johnson movement, which sought to challenge the President's re-election. Their first choice was Robert Kennedy, who had sufficiently established himself as a critic of the war and an effective popular campaigner. He declined, as did a series of lesser-known candidates, including Senator George McGovern. Lowenstein finally found a candidate in October 1967, when Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy agreed to challenge the President. At first, McCarthy merely expressed his interest, telling Lowenstein, "Somebody has to raise the flag." On November 30, 1967, McCarthy publicly announced his campaign for the nomination.
Kennedy continued to demur, despite pressure from his aides to enter the race and worry that anti-war allies, like George McGovern, would begin to make commitments to McCarthy. On January 30, he again indicated to the press that he had no plans to campaign against Johnson.
In early February 1968, after the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, Kennedy received an anguished letter from writer Pete Hamill, noting that poor people in the Watts area of Los Angeles had hung pictures of Kennedy's brother, President John F. Kennedy, in their homes. Hamill's letter reminded Robert Kennedy that he had an "obligation of staying true to whatever it was that put those pictures on those walls." There were other factors that influenced Kennedy's decision to enter the presidential primary race. On February 29, 1968, the Kerner Commission issued a report on the racial unrest that had affected American cities during the previous summer. The Kerner Commission blamed "white racism" for the violence, but its findings were largely dismissed by the Johnson administration.
On March 10, Kennedy told his aide, Peter Edelman, that he had decided to run and had to "figure out how to get McCarthy out of it." Nevertheless, Kennedy hesitated to publicly enter the race with McCarthy still in and agreed to McCarthy's request to delay an announcement of his intentions until after the New Hampshire primary. However, a phone conversation between President Johnson and Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley on January 27, 1968 revealed that Daley had knowledge of Kennedy's intentions to run for President by that time, with Daley telling Johnson that Kennedy met with him and sought his support, which he declined.
Candidates
The following political leaders were candidates for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination:
Other major candidates
These candidates participated in multiple state primaries or were included in multiple major national polls.
Favorite sons
The following candidates ran only in their home state or district's primary or caucuses for the purpose of controlling its delegate slate at the convention and did not appear to be considered national candidates by the media.
- Governor Roger D. Branigin of Indiana (endorsed Humphrey)
- Governor Richard J. Hughes of New Jersey (endorsed Humphrey)
- State Attorney General Thomas C. Lynch of California (endorsed Humphrey)
- Governor Robert Evander McNair of South Carolina
- Governor Dan Moore of North Carolina
- Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine
- Representative Joseph Resnick of Westchester County, New York
- Senator George Smathers of Florida (endorsed Humphrey)
- Senator Stephen M. Young of Ohio (endorsed Humphrey)
Declined to run
The following persons were listed in two or more major national polls or were the subject of media speculation surrounding their potential candidacy, but declined to actively seek the nomination.
- Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts
- Former Governor George Wallace of Alabama (ran third-party campaign)
Campaign
March: New Hampshire, Kennedy enters, Johnson withdraws
Running as an antiwar candidate in the New Hampshire presidential primary, McCarthy hoped to pressure the Democrats into publicly opposing the Vietnam War. Trailing badly in national polls and with little chance to influence delegate selection absent primary wins, McCarthy decided to pour most of his resources into New Hampshire, the first state to hold a primary election. He was boosted by thousands of young college students who volunteered throughout the state, who shaved their beards and cut their hair to "Get Clean for Gene."
On March 12, McCarthy was the only person on the ballot, as Johnson had not filed, and was only a write in candidate. McCarthy won 42% of the primary vote to Johnson's 50%, an extremely strong showing for such a challenger which gave McCarthy's campaign legitimacy and momentum. 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 in the state, a number of competing pro-Johnson delegate candidates split his vote, allowing McCarthy to take twenty delegates.
Despite his desire to oppose Johnson directly and the fear that McCarthy would split the anti-war vote, Kennedy pushed forward with his planned campaign. On March 16, Kennedy declared, "I am today announcing my candidacy for the presidency of the United States. I do not run for the presidency merely to oppose any man, but to propose new policies. I run because I am convinced that this country is on a perilous course and because I have such strong feelings about what must be done, and I feel that I'm obliged to do all I can." However, due to his late entry, Kennedy's name would not appear on a state ballot until the Indiana primary on May 7.
In their January 27, 1968 phone conservation, Daley and Johnson detailed how they had initially intended to feed Kennedy's ego and make it seem like his campaign was creating a "revolution." Johnson at the time had agreed to accept Daley's proposal to either stay in the race or drop out and run as Hubert Humphrey's Vice President.
Johnson now had two strong challengers, sitting members of the Senate with demonstrated popularity. To make matters worse, polling in Wisconsin showed McCarthy beating Johnson badly, with the latter getting only 12% of the vote. Facing declining health and bleak political forecasts in the upcoming primaries, Johnson concluded that he could not win the nomination without a major political and personal struggle. On March 31, 1968, at the end of a televised address on Vietnam, he shocked the nation by announcing that he would not seek re-election. By withdrawing, he could avoid the stigma of defeat and could keep control of the party machinery to support Vice President Hubert Humphrey. As the year developed, it also became clear that Johnson believed he could secure his place in the history books by ending the war before the election in November, which would give Humphrey the boost he would need to win.
With Johnson out of the race, Democratic support split between four candidates: McCarthy, Kennedy, Humphrey (who had not yet declared himself a candidate), and former Alabama governor George Wallace, running as a third-party candidate. McCarthy rallied students and intellectuals, who had been the early activists against the war in Vietnam. Kennedy gained support from the poor, Catholics, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and other racial and ethnic minorities. Humphrey gained the support of labor unions and big-city bosses, such as Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley. Conservative Democrats, especially in the South, tended to support either Humphrey or Wallace.
April: McCarthy triumphant, Humphrey enters
The Wisconsin primary on April 2 was effectively uncontested. McCarthy received 56% of the vote. Kennedy received 6% as a write-in candidate. Kennedy was ineligible for the ballot because he entered the race following the filing deadline. The Pennsylvania primary on April 23 was similarly a rout for McCarthy, who took 71% of the vote.
After Johnson's withdrawal, Vice President Hubert Humphrey announced his candidacy on April 27. Humphrey's campaign concentrated on winning the delegates in non-primary states, where party leaders controlled the delegate votes. Humphrey did not compete in the primaries, leaving favorite sons to win delegates as surrogates, notably Senator George A. Smathers from Florida, Senator Stephen M. Young from Ohio, and Indiana governor Roger D. Branigin.
In the Massachusetts primary on April 30 neither Humphrey nor Kennedy were formally listed on the ballot. As a result, McCarthy won the popular vote easily, and by the rules in place at the time, all 72 of the commonwealth's delegates were pledged to him on the first ballot. Some analysts viewed Humphrey's unexpectedly strong showing (44,156 write-in votes, or 18% of the total) as a clear victory over Kennedy, a Brookline, Massachusetts native, who polled a meager 28% write-in vote in his family's home state.