The 1968 United States presidential election in Florida was held on November 5, 1968. Florida voters chose fourteen electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
Nixon obtained his support in Central Florida, Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey got his support from Southern Florida, and third-party candidate George Wallace got his support from the Florida Panhandle, or Northern Florida. This was one of the better states for George Wallace, due to the Northern part of the state being against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which Lyndon Johnson had signed into law. This led to Democratic party gains in support from black voters. The party simultaneously lost the great majority of white voters. One exception to this abandonment by white voters came in the Jewish sections of Miami.
Among white voters, 45% supported Nixon, 32% supported Wallace, and 23% supported Humphrey. The Republican Party held their convention in Miami Beach that year.
Primary elections
Democratic primary
Florida held its Democratic presidential primary on May 28, 1968. George Smathers won the Florida Democratic primary. Scott Kelly lead the unpledged delegation.
Republican primary
Florida held its Republican primary on May 28, 1968. The only option on the ballot was "no preference".
Results
Results by county
Counties that flipped from Democratic to American Independent
- Baker
- Bradford
- Dixie
- Flagler
- Gilchrist
- Hamilton
- Levy
- Sumter
- Union
Counties that flipped from Republican to American Independent
- Bay
- Calhoun
- Clay
- Columbia
- DeSoto
- Duval
- Escambia
- Franklin
- Glades
- Gadsden
- Gulf
- Hendry
- Hernando
- Hardee
- Holmes
- Jackson
- Jefferson
- Lafayette
- Leon
- Liberty
- Madison
- Marion
- Nassau
- Okaloosa
- Okeechobee
- Putnam
- Polk
- St. Johns
- Santa Rosa
- Suwannee
- Taylor
- Walton
- Washington
- Wakulla
Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican
- Brevard
- Charlotte
- Citrus
- Hillsborough
- Pasco
- Pinellas
- St. Lucie
- Volusia
Results by congressional district
Nixon won 8 congressional districts (including five held by Democrats), while Wallace won 3 (all held by Democrats), and Humphrey won a single district.
Analysis
Between the imposition of a poll tax in 1889 and the migration of numerous northerners seeking a hotter climate in the 1940s, Florida had been a one-party Democratic state, lacking any traditional white Republicanism due to the absence of mountains or German "Forty-Eighter" settlements. So late as the landmark court case of Smith v. Allwright (1944), half of Florida's registered Republicans were still black, although very few blacks in Florida had ever voted within the previous fifty-five years. New migrants from traditionally Republican northern states took up residence in Central Florida and brought with them their Republican voting habits at the presidential level.
In 1964 there was a complete reversal of the 1950s voting pattern of a largely Republican south and central Florida and continuing Democratic loyalty in the North, with almost zero correlation between 1960 and 1964 county returns. Following his landslide sweep of the northern states, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society at first appeared to be helping him in Florida; however, the relationship soured quickly as the Democratic Party factionalized. In 1966, via a campaign portraying his opponent as a dangerous liberal, Claude R. Kirk defeated Miami mayor Robert King Hugh to become (alongside Winthrop Rockefeller) the first GOP governor of any Confederate state since Alfred A. Taylor in 1922.
As of the 2016 presidential election, this is the last election in which Escambia County, Clay County, Okaloosa County, and Santa Rosa County did not support the Republican candidate.