1968 United States Presidential Election (Stars and Stripes Forever)

The 1968 United States Presidential Election was the 46th quadrennial presidential election. In an unexpected victory, former Republican Vice President Joesph McCarthy defeated incumbent Democratic President Hubert Humphrey, and also defeated a slew of multiple new candidates, in what would soon be known as the "Multi Election" as it ushered in the era of the "Four Parties."

With the assassination of President Lyndon Johnson three months into his term, Vice President Hubert Humphrey was inaugurated as President. President Humphrey was mostly inactive as President, but was widely expected to win the election. However, with the backing of Douglas MacArthur and Richard Nixon, McCarthy energized the Republicans and ran a massive campaign. However, both McCarthy and Humphrey faced the possibility of another 1912 with Nelson Rockefeller founding the New Federalists and Sargent Shriver running for the Progressives in their first national campaign since 1948.

McCarthy ran on a "law and order" campaign, promising to re-establish law and order as there were many race riots happening at the time of the election. He also pledged to purge communists from the government and attacked President Humphrey for harboring communist spies. Humphrey, with little to campaign on, fell back on the civil rights issue, pledging to expand civil rights protections. Rockefeller attacked McCarthy as a far-right extremist and Humphrey as an idle do-nothing. He, like McCarthy and Humphrey, ignored Shriver for the most part, though there were rumors of the two possibly combining their electoral votes to win.

McCarthy won with 295 electoral votes, while much smaller than previous Republican victories, his ability to win even in the face of a split party vote was impressive. Humphrey, Rockefeller, Wallace, and Shriver split the rest of the electoral votes.