The 1968 United States Presidential Election (All The King's Men)

The 1968 United States presidential election was the 46th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 5, 1968. The Republican nominee, Martin Luther King Jr, defeated Democrat incumbent Robert Kennedy, and Third Position party leader Ronald Reagan,  Analysts have argued the election of 1968 was a major realigning election as it permanently disrupted the New Deal Coalition that had dominated presidential politics for 36 years, it was also the first time an open democratic socialist was voted for on the Republican side.

Incumbent Democrat Eugene McCarthy was the original front runner, but he announced his withdrawal from the race after MLK entered and took more than 60% of the Democratic youth vote, allowing Robert Kennedy to take McCarthy's place as front runner, as well as Senator Hubert Humphery, all appeared as top contenders in the Democratic Race.

MLK entered the 1968 Republican primaries as the front-runner, and he defeated Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, and other candidates at the 1968 Republican National Convention to win his party's nomination.

The election-year was tumultuous; it was marked by the assassination of Civil Rights Movement leader and former Communist Party member Paul Robeson, who was shot and killed in a hotel in San Diego, California while giving a speech rerunning for Governor, subsequent Robeson assassination riots across the nation, and widespread opposition to the Vietnam War across university campuses combined to be a tense election-year for all parties involved.

Updated polling map in 1968:

https://www.270towin.com/maps/b4JEm

Red-MLK/Rockefeller

Blue-RFK/McGovern

Gold-Reagan/Steele