See main article: 1968 United States presidential election.
| Election Name: | 1968 United States presidential election in Alaska |
| Country: | Alaska |
| Type: | presidential |
| Ongoing: | no |
| Previous Election: | 1964 United States presidential election in Alaska |
| Previous Year: | 1964 |
| Next Election: | 1972 United States presidential election in Alaska |
| Next Year: | 1972 |
| Election Date: | November 5, 1968 |
| Image1: | Nixon_30-0316a_(cropped).jpg |
| Nominee1: | Richard Nixon |
| Party1: | Republican Party (United States) |
| Home State1: | New York |
| Running Mate1: | Spiro Agnew |
| Electoral Vote1: | 3 |
| Popular Vote1: | 37,600 |
| Percentage1: | 45.28% |
| Nominee2: | Hubert Humphrey |
| Party2: | Democratic Party (United States) |
| Home State2: | Minnesota |
| Running Mate2: | Edmund Muskie |
| Electoral Vote2: | 0 |
| Popular Vote2: | 35,411 |
| Percentage2: | 42.65% |
| Image3: | George Wallace (D-AL) (3x4).jpg |
| Nominee3: | George Wallace |
| Party3: | American Independent Party |
| Home State3: | Alabama |
| Running Mate3: | Curtis LeMay |
| Electoral Vote3: | 0 |
| Popular Vote3: | 10,024 |
| Percentage3: | 12.07% |
| Color3: | ff9955 |
| President | |
| Before Election: | Lyndon Johnson |
| Before Party: | Democratic Party (United States) |
| After Election: | Richard Nixon |
| After Party: | Republican Party (United States) |
The 1968 United States presidential election in Alaska took place on November 5, 1968, as part of the nationwide presidential election. Voters chose three representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
Alaska was won by Richard Nixon (R-New York) with 45.3 percent of the popular vote against incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey (D-Minnesota) with 42.6 percent.[1] Nixon ultimately won the national vote as well, defeating Humphrey and becoming the next President. Former and future Governor George Wallace (D-Alabama) ran under the far-right American Independent Party ticket, which favored continuing racial segregation within public schools in addition to most other areas of society throughout the Southern United States.
Wallace received over 12% of the vote in Alaska.
| 1968 United States presidential election in Alaska | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | Percentage | Electoral votes | ||
| Republican | Richard Nixon | 37,600 | 45.28% | 3 | ||
| Democratic | Hubert Humphrey | 35,411 | 42.65% | 0 | ||
| American Independent | George Wallace | 10,024 | 12.07% | 0 | ||
| Totals | 83,035 | 100.00% | 3 | |||
Alaska has only voted Democratic once, and that was in the previous 1964 election for incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson, who did not run for re-election; nonetheless, during the state's first four presidential elections Alaska was little or no more Republican than the nation at-large.[2] Nixon's 45.28 percent stood 1.86 percent above his national figure and Humphrey's 42.65 percent was a trifling 0.07 percent below his national total. This is the last time Democrats carried Kenai Peninsula and Petersburg.
Despite Alaska lying at the opposite end of the country from Wallace's support base in the Deep South, he did not fare badly in the relatively heavily populated areas of Anchorage, the Kenai Peninsula, and the Susitna Valley: indeed in Kenai Peninsula Borough Wallace received over twenty percent of the vote.[3]
Wallace's 12.07 percent of Alaska's vote was 1.46 percent below his percentage for the nation at large, but nonetheless his third-greatest outside antebellum slave states and Oklahoma, behind 13.25 percent in Nevada and 12.55 percent in Idaho.[4]