The 1968 Election in the West

Abstract

TONG BEFORE the voters went to the polls, observers generally conceded that most of the thirteen states which compose the West would go for NixonAgnew. Westerners ran true to form. Humphrey-Muskie were only able to capture 13 (Washington and Hawaii) of the area's 95 electoral votes. In the popular vote contest Nixon-Agnew won easily over Humphrey-Muskie, 48.8 percent to 43.6 percent, while Wallace received only 6.9 percent (see Table 1). The extent of the Nixon-Agnew victory in the West was clearly more impressive than it was in the U.S. as a whole. Nationwide the Republican candidates received 43.4, Democrats 42.7, and Wallace 13.5 percent of the vote. While NixonAgnew won the national popular poll by less than 1 percent, they captured the thirteen Western states by more than 5 percent. By way of contrast, in 1960, Nixon received 51.1 percent and President John Kennedy captured 48.5 percent of the popular vote in the West. Thus, in 1968 Nixon doubled his popular vote margin over 1960 from 2.6 to 5.2 percent. It is difficult, if not impossible, to calculate precisely the effect of the Wallace vote on Nixon's margin. However, it is safe to conclude, as some of the individual