United States presidential election in New Mexico, 1968
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The 1968 United States presidential election in New Mexico took place on November 5, 1968. All fifty states and
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, were part of the
1968 United States presidential election The 1968 United States presidential election was the 46th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1968. The Republican nominee, former vice president Richard Nixon, defeated the Democratic nominee, incumbent vice presiden ...
. 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 Events January * January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved. * January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch ...
, 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 Eugene Joseph McCarthy (March 29, 1916December 10, 2005) was an American politician, writer, and academic from Minnesota. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the United States Senate from 1959 to 1971. ...
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 ) is a county in the U.S. state of New Mexico. As of the 2010 census, the population was 4,881. Its county seat is the census-designated place (CDP) Mora. The county has another CDP, Watrous, a village, Wagon Mound, and 12 smaller unincorporated ...
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 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...
. Since then it has become a Democratic leaning swing state, with only narrowly voting Republican once, when
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
won New Mexico over then Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry by a very slim margin in
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.


Results


Results by county


Notes


References

{{State results of the 1968 U.S. presidential election New Mexico 1968 New Mexico elections
1968 The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide. Events January–February * January 5 – "Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. * Januar ...