United States presidential election in Maine, 1968

United States presidential election in Maine, 1968

← 1964 November 5, 1968 1972 →
Nominee Hubert Humphrey Richard Nixon Party Democratic Republican Home state Minnesota New York Running mate Edmund Muskie Spiro Agnew Electoral vote 4 0 Popular vote 217,312 169,254 Percentage 55.3% 43.1%
Humphrey—70-80%   Humphrey—60-70%   Humphrey—50-60%   Nixon—<50%   Nixon—50-60%
President before election Lyndon Johnson Democratic Elected President Richard Nixon Republican

Lyndon Johnson
Democratic

Richard Nixon
Republican

The 1968 United States presidential election in Maine took place on November 5, 1968, as part of the 1968 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all fifty states and D.C. Voters chose four representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for President and Vice President.

Maine was won by incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey by twelve percentage points over Republican challenger and former Vice President Richard M. Nixon. Humphrey received 55.30 percent of the vote in Maine, which equated to 217,312 total votes to Nixon’s 43.07 percent and 169,254 total votes. Despite Nixon squeaking by Humphrey nationwide, the Vice President’s decisive victory in Maine made the state about thirteen percentage points more Democratic than the nation as a whole in 1968. Humphrey’s win was almost certainly due to to the popularity and consequent “favorite son” status in Maine of his running mate Edmund Muskie.

Alabama Governor George Wallace received 6,370 votes on the American Independent ticket with 1.62 percent of the vote. Despite his significant impact on the election as a whole, Wallace did not have a serious impact in Maine. Indeed, upstate Aroostook County was Wallace’s weakest in the nation outside of the District of Columbia where he was not on the ballot.

1968 would prove to be the last time that a Democratic presidential nominee would carry the state of Maine until Bill Clinton in 1992, and the last time that a Democrat would win an absolute majority of the popular vote in the state until Clinton also did so in 1996. The state swung heavily towards Richard Nixon in 1972, awarding him over 61 percent of the vote, which no presidential candidate of either party has surpassed since.