United States presidential election in New Mexico, 1968

The 1968 United States presidential election in New Mexico took place on November 5, 1968. All fifty states and The District of Columbia, were part of the 1968 United States presidential election. State voters chose four electors to represent them in the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

Background

New Mexico had been a long-time political bellwether, having supported the winning candidate in every presidential election since statehood in 1912. However, a definite Republican trend was detectable in 1964, when Goldwater was able to win a vote share two percent above his national mean and Johnson feared losing traditionally Southern Democratic " Little Texas".

The 1966 midterm elections saw the state join with larger "Sunbelt" dynamics and Democratic candidates for statewide offices would lose twelve percent or more of their previous vote share,Wolf, T. Phillip; 'The 1966 Election in New Mexico'; ''The Western Political Quarterly'', vol. 20, No. 2, Part 2 (June 1967), pp. 586-592 in the process showing that Hispanic candidates were becoming a liability in Albuquerque and the east due to considerable in-migration, and legislative GOP percentages reached levels not observed for over four decades.

Local issues of public school finance and land-grant claims for the Hispanic and Native American populations of the state proved a further liability for the incumbent Democratic Party.Wolf, T. Phillip; 'The 1968 Elections in New Mexico', ''The Western Political Quarterly'', vol. 22, no. 3 (September 1969), pp. 510-516 The issue of the stalemated Vietnam War was another problem for the Democratic Party in a state severely affected by poverty, and anti-war Eugene McCarthy gained substantial support among New Mexico Democrats before the assassination of Bobby Kennedy largely turned them toward eventual nominee Hubert Humphrey.

Vote

Incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey and segregationist American Independent Party candidate and former Governor of Alabama George Wallace campaigned in New Mexico during the autumn, whilst running mate Spiro Agnew did all the campaigning for Republican Richard Nixon in the state. Despite his failure to visit, New Mexico was won by former Vice President Nixon by a 12-point margin against Humphrey. Wallace, far from his base in the Deep South, did well among working and lower-middle class unionized workersConverse, Philip E.; Miller, Warren E.; Rusk, Jerrold G. and Wolfe, Arthur C.; 'Continuity and Change in American Politics: Parties and Issues in the 1968 Election'; ''The American Political Science Review'', vol. 63, no. 4 (December 1969), pp. 1083-1105 and farmers in the "Little Texas" region, but received some of his poorest national percentages in the north-central highland regions – Mora County gave Wallace his eleventh-smallest vote share of any county in the country.

Nixon's victory was the first of six consecutive Republican victories in the state, as New Mexico would not vote for a Democratic candidate again until Bill Clinton in 1992. Since then it has become a Democratic leaning swing state, with only narrowly voting Republican once, when George W. Bush won New Mexico over then Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry by a very slim margin in 2004.

Results

Results by county

Notes

References

{{State results of the 1968 U.S. presidential election

New Mexico
1968 New Mexico elections
1968