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The 1968 United States presidential election was the 46th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1968. The Democratic nominee, vice president Hubert Humphrey, defeated the Republican nominee, former vice president Richard Nixon, and the American Independent Party nominee, former Alabama Governor George Wallace. It is considered one of the closest elections in US history, with great controversy surrounding the ultimate results.

Incumbent president Lyndon B. Johnson had been the early front-runner for the Democratic Party's nomination, but he withdrew from the race after only narrowly winning the New Hampshire primary. Eugene McCarthy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Humphrey emerged as the three major candidates in the Democratic primaries, until Kennedy was assassinated. Humphrey won the nomination, sparking numerous anti-war protests. Nixon entered the Republican primaries as the front-runner, defeating liberal New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, and conservative Governor of California Ronald Reagan, and other candidates to win his party's nomination. Alabama's Democratic former governor, George Wallace, ran on the American Independent Party ticket, campaigning in favor of racial segregation.

The election year was tumultuous; it was marked by the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., in early April and subsequent riots across the nation, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in early June, and widespread opposition to the Vietnam War across university campuses. Vice President Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic nomination, promising to continue Johnson's war on poverty and to support the civil rights movement. Such ideas hurt Humphrey's image in the South, leading to prominent conservative Democratic governor of Alabama, George Wallace, to mount a third-party challenge against his own party, to defend racial segregation. Wallace led a far-right American Independent Party attracting socially conservative voters throughout the South, and encroaching further support from white-working class voters in the Industrial Midwest who were attracted to Wallace's economic populism. In doing so, Wallace split the New Deal Coalition, winning over Southern Democrats, as well as former Goldwater supporters who preferred Wallace to Nixon. Nixon previously served as vice president under Dwight Eisenhower for eight years, and chose to take advantage of Democratic infighting by running a centrist platform attracting moderate voters who were alienated by the liberal agenda that was advocated by Hubert Humphrey, and the ultra-conservative viewpoints shared by George Wallace on social issues regarding race and civil rights. Nixon sought to restore law and order to the nation's cities and provide new leadership in the Vietnam War. During most of the campaign, Humphrey trailed significantly in polls taken by late August, but was able to overcome Nixon's lead after Wallace's candidacy collapsed and Johnson suspended bombing in the Vietnam War.

On election night, it was unclear who had won, with the electoral votes of the state of Illinois still undecided. The returns showed that Nixon had won Illinois by such a close margin that the Humphrey campaign demanded an immediate recount. A month-long series of legal battles initiated by the Nixon campaign led to the 7–2 Supreme Court decision Nixon vs. Humphrey, which allowed the recount to continue unabated. Ultimately, the finalized recount on December 21st gave Illinois to Humphrey by just 398 votes, a margin of 0.008%. If Illinois had gone for Nixon, no candidate would have received an electoral vote majority, with 249 electoral votes for Humphrey and 244 for Nixon, which would have thrown the election to the House of Representatives and resulted in the first contingent election since 1824.

Hubert Humphrey was able to win the electoral college by a very narrow majority of 6 votes, despite winning only eighteen states to Richard Nixon's twenty-seven, the fewest number of states carried by a victorious presidential candidate since the additions of Alaska and Hawaii to the union. Humphrey won the popular vote by a considerably more comfortable 1,644,062 votes, or a 2.25% margin. Humphrey and Nixon both carried states in every region of the country, with Humphrey performing best in the Northeast and parts of the Midwest, while Nixon dominated much of the Western United States and Upland South. Wallace finished last with five states in the Deep South; he is the most recent third-party candidate to win any states.

This was the first presidential election after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which had resulted in growing restoration and enforcement of the franchise for racial minorities, especially in the South, where most had been disenfranchised since the turn of the century. Minorities in other areas also regained their ability to vote.

Humphrey's dismal performance in the South, despite his victory nationwide, marked the end of the New Deal Coalition that the Democratic Party had relied on to win elections since Franklin D. Roosevelt's liberal, New Deal economic programs in the 1930s. This election was the first time a Democrat would win the presidency without North Carolina since 1844 and Arkansas since statehood in 1836, and the last time that a Democrat won the presidency without winning a number of modern blue states and swing states, specifically California, Oregon, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Delaware.

As of 2024, this is the last election in which the presidential victor was decided by the Electoral College prior to the ratification of the 26th Amendment in 1971, which replaced the Electoral College with a two-round popular vote system.