<P> The United States presidential election of 1968 was the 46th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1968 . The Republican nominee, former Vice President Richard Nixon, won the election over the Democratic nominee, incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey . 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 . </P> <P> The election year was tumultuous; it was marked by the assassination of Civil Rights Movement leader Martin Luther King Jr., subsequent King assassination riots across the nation, the assassination of Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and widespread opposition to the Vietnam War across university campuses . Incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had won a landslide victory for the Democratic Party four years earlier, declined to seek re-election amid growing discontent over the Vietnam War and his worse - than - expected showing in the New Hampshire primary . The 1968 Democratic National Convention was a scene of violent confrontations between police and anti-war protesters as the Democrats split into multiple factions . </P> <P> Richard Nixon ran on a campaign that promised to restore law and order to the nation's cities and provide new leadership in the Vietnam War . A year later, he would popularize the term "silent majority" to describe those he viewed as being his target voters . Nixon won the popular vote by a narrow margin of 0.7 percentage points, but won easily in the Electoral College, 301--191 . The election also featured a strong third party effort by former Alabama Governor George Wallace, a vocal advocate for racial segregation in public schools . He carried five states in the Deep South and ran well in some ethnic enclave industrial districts in the North . </P> <P> This was the first election after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which had led to mass enfranchisement of racial minorities throughout the country, especially in the South . It was the last election in which New York had the most votes in the electoral college (43 votes). After the 1970 census, California gained the most electoral votes and has remained the most populous state since then . </P>

Who ran as a third-party candidate in the 1968 presidential election