Right you are, George Wallace was a significant factor in '68. I will leave Mr Actual Factual Horowitz to work out the percentages if he wishes, the numbers are pretty clear. Thanks for pointing this out, I've given up on attempting to pin Les down on any of his dubious assertions.
Richard M. Nixon 31,785,480
Hubert H. Humphrey 31,275,165
George C. Wallace 9,906,473
Numbers from polisci.com , which was just the first thing that came up on a quick web search. Wallace actually got 46 electoral votes, a lot better than old Ross Perot. I think there were other instances, a few quick checks at that site give us the 1880 election:
Republican James A. Garfield, 4,454,433
Democratic Winfield S. Hancock, 4,444,976
Greenback James B. Weaver, IA 308,649
and of course most famously, the 1876 election of Rutherford B. Hayes, who didn't even get a popular plurality, but won in the electoral college:
Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, 4,035,924
Democratic Samuel J. Tilden, 4,287,670
Of course, since the Republican came out ahead in all these examples, they don't count :-). But, in the late 1800's , it really was the party of Lincoln. Arguably our greatest President also fell well short of a popular majority in 1860:
Republican Abraham Lincoln, 1,867,198
Democratic J. C. Breckinridge 854,248l
Constitutional Union John Bell 591,658
Democratic Stephen A. Douglas 1,379,434 |
