Introduction
As the sixties marched onward, the Democratic hold on the south was weakening, on the federal level anyway. Most southern states continued to support conservative Democrats, but Virginia was among the few to flirt with actually voting Republican for offices other than president. So to continue the story, we now move on to 1968. The national election began with Republican Richard Nixon leading Democrat Hubert Humphrey easily, but ended in a nail-biter, as Humphrey repudiated Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam policy and blue-collar workers abandoned a brief flirtation with segregationist protest candidate George Wallace. As a southern state, Virginia returned a higher Wallace vote and a lower Humphrey vote than the nation as a whole, but nevertheless this was Wallace’s second-worst southern state, behind only President Lyndon Johnson’s native Texas, which was the only southern state to vote for Humphrey.
I struggled with the music to set the mood this year. There was just so much good stuff, but this is an interesting one, whose lyrics seem to embody the year, in good and bad ways:
Simon & Garfunkel - Scarborough Fair
Background
In the aftermath of the Wesberry v. Sanders Supreme Court decision in 1964, congressional districts were required to have, as much as possible, equal numbers of inhabitants. This resulted in nearly all states redrawing their district boundaries before the 1966 midterms, Virginia included. The General Assembly tried to keep the districts as intact as possible, but shifted many areas as the underpopulated 7th district greatly increased in size, and the overpopulated 2nd and 10th districts contracted. The final map was as follows:
The new boundaries were still based on the 1960 census data, and so some districts were still overpopulated after eight years of change, but this map reflected the one-person-one-vote principle much better than the previous map had. This was also the first congressional district map that divided a locality (Fairfax County, in this case, as seen here), as Virginia and other states were forced to abandon this requirement in the aftermath of Wesberry. Nonetheless, the new map tried to keep divided localities to a minimum, where possible.
District partition of Fairfax County, 1966 district map
Virginia’s Congressional Delegation
After the 1968 elections, Virginia had an even split, with five Democrats and five Republicans. One of the new Republicans had won an open seat in this year’s elections, while the other two had come in during the 1966 midterms, which had resulted in Democratic losses across the nation, not only in Virginia. The ideological makeup of the delegation shifted rightward, as the most liberal Democrat was defeated, and those remaining were generally conservative. Due to the Wallace vote, a fair amount of ticket-splitting took place between congressional and presidential vote, which we will examine as well.
District 1
This district became more compact in the redrawing, losing rural counties in the north, but retaining the non-contiguous Eastern Shore and Virginia Beach, which had grown substantially as a suburban community since the start of the decade. But despite Republican strength in Virginia Beach, the party hadn’t even bothered with an opposition candidate in the 1966 midterms, and it fared little better in 1968, with sacrificial lamb James Stafford losing badly to Rep. Thomas Downing (D).
Rep. Thomas Downing (D-VA)
In fact, Downing’s strongest challenge came from his left, in the form of J. Cornelius Fauntleroy, head of the Newport News NAACP, who ran as an independent and actually outpolled the Republican. But Downing won by a landslide, with 73% of the vote, to Fauntleroy’s 14.6% and Stafford’s 12.5%. In the preceding term and following term, Downing generally continued as a conservative Democrat, voting against the Fair Housing Act, but a slow, leftward drift that continued to the end of his career had already begun. With the remnants of the Byrd machine growing weaker by the year, Downing voted in favor of more liberal spending and regulatory reforms than he had before 1964, supporting the Gun Control Act of 1968, the Public Broadcasting Act, the Radiation Control for Health and Safety Act, and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. He also supported the National Environmental Policy Act and Environmental Quality Improvement Act in the subsequent Congress. However, he also voted against the Occupational Health and Safety Act, and was one of only eleven Democrats who voted against the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970, which initiated wage and price controls (this act may have been the most partisan vote of the 91st Congress, as nearly every Democrat voted for it, and almost all Republicans against it). Overall, Downing was rated as 35% liberal and 65% conservative, which actually made him possibly the most liberal member from Virginia, with the departure of W. Pat Jennings after 1966.
In the presidential election, this district voted almost evenly for all three candidates, with Richard Nixon winning a plurality of 37%, followed by Humphrey with 32%, and Wallace with 31% (my apologies for not having more exact numbers, the Almanac of American Politics apparently doesn’t round to the nearest tenth of a percent). Most of Nixon and Humphrey’s strength came from the populated southern end of the district in Hampton and Newport News, while Wallace’s vote came mainly from the more rural counties. It appears that Downing won most of the Wallace vote and about half the Humphrey and Nixon votes in his victory, while the other half of the Humphrey voters backed Fauntleroy and about 40% of Nixon voters backed Stafford.
District 2
This district became noticeably smaller, as Chesapeake was removed from it, leaving just the cities of Portsmouth and Norfolk. This made it by far the most urban district in the state, but the Republicans suddenly got an opening when Rep. Porter Hardy opted to retire after over twenty years in the House. The Democrats nominated a populist liberal, Frederick Stant, an ally of anti-segregationist Henry Howell, a strong liberal voice in the General Assembly and longtime Norfolk political fixture, but G. William Whitehurst (R), a college professor at Old Dominion University, squeaked in ahead of Stant, 54.2% to 45.8%.
Rep. G. William Whitehurst (R-VA)
In most respects, Whitehurst was a typical moderate to conservative Republican, though he sometimes broke with his party in protecting the interests of his district. As a former professor, Whitehurst generally voted in favor of increased spending on education, sometimes even overriding Nixon’s vetoes on continued spending in this area, and opposed reduced funding to the Office of Economic Opportunity, but like most Republicans he opposed the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970, despite President Nixon’s outward support of the wage and price controls enacted by the act. He also voted against the Occupational Health and Safety Act, but supported the Radiation Control for Health and Safety Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Environmental Quality Improvement Act. Clearly, this was a time when conservatism hadn’t adopted its present hysterical opposition to all environmental protections.
In the presidential election, this was the only district in Virginia which supported Hubert Humphrey, who won with a plurality of 43%, with Nixon far behind at 31%, and Wallace a distant third at 26%. All the Humphrey voters appear to have supported Stant, but Whitehurst won almost all of the combined Wallace and Nixon vote, with perhaps a few Wallace voters backing Stant. This allowed Humphrey to win the district even as a Republican replaced Porter Hardy.
District 3
This district was nearly unchanged; the only alteration done after Wesberry was the transfer of Colonial Heights from this district to the neighboring 4th district. While the 1964 result was greatly disappointing to Republicans, the conservative Democratic incumbent didn’t even draw a challenger in the 1966 midterms. With a presidential ticket running in 1968, local Republicans recruited John S. Hansen, a Richmond local politician, who attached himself at the hip to the Nixon campaign. The incumbent, Rep. David Satterfield (D), apparently declared that he would vote for Humphrey, but refused to actually endorse his party’s much more liberal presidential nominee (sound familiar?), and was reckoned to be actually slightly more conservative than Hansen, leading some African-American leaders to back the Republican. With most conservatives reckoning that Satterfield was the safer bet ideologically, despite Hansen’s strong endorsement of Nixon, Satterfield defeated Hansen, 60.3% to 39.7%.
Rep. David Satterfield (D-VA)
Satterfield continued as a conservative southern Democrat in his second and third terms, voting against the Public Broadcasting Act, the Occupational Health and Safety Act, and the Gun Control Act of 1968. However, with his urban constituents in mind, he voted against cutting funding to the New Cities project. As he had in his first term, he usually supported more minor consumer protections, such as the Radiation Control for Health and Safety Act of 1968, and also voted for the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Environmental Quality Improvement Act. Like most Democrats, conservative and liberal alike, he voted for the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970. Much of the time, however, he still voted a conservative line, and had the lowest rating from Americans for Democratic Action for most of the 90th and 91st Congress.
This district was Richard Nixon’s second best in Virginia, giving him an outright majority of 52%, with Hubert Humphrey a fairly distant second at 29%, and Wallace further behind still at 19%. Nixon won very large majorities in Henrico and Chesterfield Counties that counterbalanced Humphrey’s plurality win in Richmond itself. Ticket-splitting appeared rampant here, with most Humphrey voters backing Hansen for Congress, but with perhaps more than half of Nixon voters crossing over for Satterfield. Wallace voters appear to have voted almost entirely for Satterfield.
District 4
This district changed slightly, losing Mecklenburg and Brunswick Counties to the 5th district, gaining Colonial Heights from the 3rd district, and gaining Chesapeake from the 2nd district. This made the district slightly less African-American, but only very slightly, and likely had little effect on the district’s politics, as the white majority was still strongly conservative and still able to outvote the now-enfranchised African-American minority. The disarray of the local Republican party was such that a liberal African-American civil rights lawyer who endorsed Humphrey for president, Samuel W. Tucker, became the nominee. This created an anomalous situation in which a Republican challenger was clearly to the left of Rep. Watkins Abbitt (D), unlike the more ambiguous situation in the 3rd district. Abbitt, who had actually faced a challenge from the right from the segregationist Conservative Party nominee Edward Silverman in 1966 (presumably due to his vote in favor of the Voting Rights Act), may have worried that strong segregationists might abstain rather than chose between him and a liberal African-American. But instead, Nixon and Wallace voters combined behind him, and Abbitt was re-elected, 71.5% to 28.5%.
Rep. Watkins Abbitt (D-VA)
Abbitt, like Satterfield, generally continued as a conservative Democrat in the 90th and 91st Congress, voting against the Fair Housing Act, the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, the Gun Control Act of 1968, and the Occupational Health and Safety Act. But like Satterfield, he voted in favor of the the Radiation Control for Health and Safety Act of 1968. Like most Democrats generally, Abbitt voted in favor of the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970. Abbitt also supported the National Environmental Policy Act, despite his votes against other reforms. While the Byrd machine was not what it once was, Abbitt maintained a conservative stance generally, and was probably tied with John O. Marsh for the most conservative Democrat in the delegation.
In the presidential election, this was George Wallace’s second-best district in the state, giving him a narrow plurality win with 36% of the vote. Capturing the African-American vote, Hubert Humphrey came in a close second with 33%, while Richard Nixon came in a close third at 31%. Most of Humphrey’s supporters voted for Tucker, Abbitt’s Republican opponent, while the Nixon and Wallace vote appears to have combined behind Abbitt.
District 5
This district began it’s long, slow movement north and east, losing Wythe County to the neighboring 9th district, but gaining Campbell County from the 6th district, and Mecklenburg and Brunswick counties from the 4th district, as mentioned. This made the district somewhat more African-American than before, but only very slightly. Incumbent Byrd Democrat Rep. William Tuck opted to retire rather than remain on the back bench, but most reckoned that another, less excitable conservative Democrat was likely to succeed him. The Republicans, perhaps hoping for voters who recognized the last name, nominated Weldon Tuck, a third cousin of the retiring congressman. Aside from his distant relation to the outgoing representative, I was able to find out almost nothing about the younger Tuck, other than that he was a delegate to the 1964 Republican convention, presumably for Goldwater, and thus probably very conservative. Anticipating a conservative would be the Democratic nominee, liberal civil rights attorney Ruth Harvey (who, as a African-American female attorney in a southern state, was really a very daring trailblazer) threw her hat into the ring as an independent. But the election was won by Dan Daniel (D), a former Byrd operative who opted to run for the open seat when his trial balloon for governor was shot down. Daniel won the election with 54.6%, compared to 26.7% for Tuck, and 18.7% for Harvey.
Rep. Dan Daniel (D-VA)
Daniel, a native of Pittsylvania County, had worked his way up in the textile mills of Danville, rising from an ordinary line worker to an executive of the company. He had also briefly served as commander of the American Legion, and had served in the General Assembly, where he had mostly been a Byrd loyalist, defending “massive resistance” and generally voting a conservative line (though he had moderated his views somewhat after Byrd’s death in 1966). But where Tuck had been outspoken, brash, and blunt, Daniel had a more quiet, genteel manner; he sponsored few bills, seldom gave speeches on the floor, and shunned media attention.
Daniel generally took a conservative line in his first term, like his predecessor, but often took a more moderate line regarding labor and regulatory policy than Tuck had done. He was the only Virginia Democrat to vote in favor of the Occupational Health and Safety Act; his mill worker past and blue-collar character of his district may have persuaded him to support it. Daniel also voted for the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Environmental Quality Improvement Act. But he was one of only eleven Democrats in the House to vote against the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970.
In the presidential election, this was George Wallace’s best district, though even here he only squeaked ahead of Richard Nixon by a narrow plurality of 37%, compared to Nixon’s 36%, with Hubert Humphrey taking the remaining 27%. Most of the Wallace voters appear to have backed Daniel, while Tuck took about 2/3 of the Nixon vote, though he only won two counties (Grayson and Carroll) in the westernmost edge of the district. Harvey’s vote went almost entirely to Humphrey, though it appears that some Humphrey voters voted the straight ticket for Daniel as well.
District 6
This district was nearly the same size and shape as before, losing Campbell County to the 5th district, as mentioned, and gaining Nelson and Amherst Counties from the 7th district. The bulk of the district’s population was still centered in Roanoke and Lynchburg, and Rep. Richard Poff (R), having survived a strong challenge in 1964, was reckoned safe, having defeated a Democrat in 1966 by a 60-point margin. 1968 proved no more of a challenge, as Poff defeated Democratic sacrificial lamb Tom Hufford by a rather astounding margin of 92.7% to 7.3%
Rep. Richard Poff (R-VA)
Poff generally continued as a conservative Republican in the 91st Congress, voting against the Occupational Health & Safety Act, and like most Republicans generally he opposed the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970. But like every other Virginia member, he supported the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and Environmental Quality Improvement Act. Unlike most conservative Republicans, Poff also supported the Public Broadcasting Act. Poff was one of the few southern, rural members to support the Gun Control Act of 1968, and Poff was also one of the principal authors of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, better known by it’s acronym of “RICO,” which allowed for extended criminal penalties and civil causes of action against organized crime, designed to close loopholes then often used by the Mafia to evade prosecution. DailyKos readers may be interested to know that our current esteemed president was the object of a RICO investigation related to Trump University.
Poff was re-elected again in 1970, winning by a large but more reasonable margin over Democrat Roy White, but retired before 1972 when he was offered a seat on the Supreme Court by President Nixon. Ultimately, Poff decided not to accept, worried that the hearings would have led to his adopted son discovering his true parentage before he was ready to learn about this. Poff ultimately took a seat on the Virginia Supreme Court instead in 1972, and did not re-enter elective politics thereafter.
This was Richard Nixon’s third best district in the presidential election, and he won it outright with 52%, with Humphrey coming in a faraway second at 25%, and Wallace further behind still at 22%. The Nixon and Poff vote overlaps considerably, but because Hufford was the very definition of “some dude,” it’s hard to say how many Humphrey supporters, if any, actually voted for Poff or merely abstained. In any event, most of the Humphrey support was in Roanoke itself, while Wallace was strongest in the eastern edges of the district. In a final curiosity, this district also contained a locality (Nelson County) where the vote was almost equally split between all three candidates.
District 7
This district expanded into the central part of the state, losing Nelson and Amherst Counties to the 6th district, but gaining Culpeper, Orange, Greene, Fluvanna, and Albemarle Counties (along with the city of Charlottesville) from the 8th district. Overall, this didn’t change the political balance in the district very much, and Republicans tried again to unseat Byrd conservative Rep. John O. Marsh (D), who had defeated State Senator Edward McCue in 1966 by a relatively close 59-40 margin. The Republicans again recruited a serious challenger, Delegate Pete Giesen of Waynesboro, who tried to woo both traditional Nixon Republicans and also Democrats dissatisfied with Marsh’s conservatism. Oddly, an independent who endorsed Wallace for president (Louis Brooks) also jumped into the race on the grounds that Marsh wasn’t conservative enough. But Marsh was re-elected, again in a rather close race, with 54.4% to Giesen’s 43.2%. Brooks ultimately only got 2.4% of the vote, as most Wallace supporters voted for Marsh.
Rep. John O. Marsh (D-VA)
Marsh continued as a conservative southern Democrat in his third and fourth terms. He opposed the Fair Housing Act, the Public Broadcasting Act, the Occupational Health and Safety Act, and the Gun Control Act of 1968. But like most Democrats generally, he supported the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970. Like his fellow conservative Democrats, Marsh also generally supported infrastructure and environmental bills, but generally had a very conservative record, similar to Satterfield, and slightly to the right of Daniel. Marsh, who was an Army reservist, also briefly served in Vietnam during this period, though he kept his true identity a secret from his men, worried that they might treat him differently if they knew he was a sitting member of Congress. With the decline of the Byrd Machine accelerating, and his re-election margins never terribly robust anyway, Marsh opted not to seek another term in 1970. He later became a Republican, becoming an adviser to President Gerald Ford in 1974, and later became Secretary of the Army under Ronald Reagan.
Richard Nixon’s best performance was in the 7th district, which he won with 55% of the vote. Humphrey came in a distant second at 25%, with Wallace in third place at 20%. The Wallace and Humphrey voters almost all supported Marsh, along with about a quarter of Republicans. Giesen did manage to win his hometown of Waynesboro and surrounding Augusta County, but was unable to differentiate himself from the conservative Marsh, especially since party lines were more blurred then than now.
District 8
As previously mentioned, this district lost most of its territory in rural central Virginia, losing Culpeper, Orange, Greene, Fluvanna, and Albemarle Counties and the City of Charlottesville to the 7th district, but also gaining Essex, King and Queen, New Kent, and Charles City County from the 1st district. It also gained the outer part of Fairfax County from the 10th district. The General Assembly had tried to preserve the district’s overall shape as best as it could, but the new district had lost many rural voters and had gained many exurban voters. Nevertheless, 30-year incumbent Howard W. Smith clearly believed he would win another term. He barely even acknowledged it when Delegate George Rawlings of Fredericksburg, a conventional liberal Democrat, challenged him for the nomination. But Rawlings had seen how complacent Smith had become, and knew that the new exurbs added in Fairfax County would all be hostile to Smith, and the longtime Rules Committee chairman lost his party’s nomination by 645 votes. This abruptly turned the Republican nominee, William Scott (R), from a longshot to a real possibility, and he ultimately won the seat, 57.2% to 42.8%. Given the closeness of that race, 1968 Democratic challenger Andrew McCutcheon, a special assistant for Sargent Shriver at the Office of Economic Opportunity, thought he had an outside chance. But Scott was re-elected with 64.9% to McCutcheon’s 35.1%.
Rep. William Scott (R-VA)
Scott was probably the most conservative member of the Virginia delegation, which was no small feat. He was one of only 25 Republicans to vote against the Fair Housing Act, and was the only Republican in the Virginia delegation to vote against the Public Broadcasting Act. He also opposed the Gun Control Act of 1968, and like most Republicans generally he opposed the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970. He was also the only member of the entire Virginia delegation (and one of only 12 members in the whole House) to vote against the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, which doubtless got him a lot of dirty looks from the Appalachian members. Oddly, he voted for the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, Environmental Quality Improvement Act, and the Occupational Health and Safety Act, despite his unreleting opposition to federal aid to the poor on the grounds that it was “socialist.”
Born in Williamsburg, Scott moved to the D.C. suburbs to work for the United States Government Publishing Office and later the Department of Justice. He ran for the Virginia State Senate in 1963 and 1965, but lost both times. Scott apparently had a mean-spirited sense of humor, which combined with an abrasive personality and an almost Quayle-like ignorance of subjects that his colleagues assumed were common knowledge led to him being generally disliked by his colleagues, and once described as the ”Dumbest Congressman.” One of Scott’s fellow Virginia Republicans (not named, but possibly William Wampler or M. Caldwell Butler) described Scott's mind as "one of the great underdeveloped areas of Virginia." Scott went on to be re-elected in 1970 by nearly the same margin as in 1968, but when his district was reduced to the D.C. suburbs only after the 1970 census, Scott decided he might have a harder time in the smaller, more liberal district and decided instead to run for Senate. He barely edged out Sen. William Spong (a moderate Democrat) by holding tight onto Nixon’s coattails, and went on to become a dumb, unpopular senator; Barry Goldwater said of Scott that "If that guy were any dumber, he'd be a tree." He retired after one term rather than face likely Democratic nominee Andrew Miller in 1978, and mercifully retired from politics.
In the presidential election, this was the district most representative of the state of Virginia as a whole, with Nixon winning a plurality of 43%, Humphrey coming in second at 34%, and Wallace in third at 23%. There was little ticket-splitting, as McCutcheon got essentially all of the Humphrey vote, and Scott got all of the combined Nixon and Wallace vote.
District 9
This district barely changed in the redrawing, adding Wythe County from the neighboring 5th district. Democrat W. Pat Jennings, a fiercely pro-labor liberal, had held the seat since 1954, appearing to shoot down the rising star of a young Republican, William Wampler, in the process. When Wampler lost a comeback attempt in the Republican-friendly year of 1956, he apparently contemplated going back to his family’s furniture business and giving up on politics. But Jennings’ closeness to LBJ following the 1964 election galvanized Republicans, and Wampler tried a second comeback in 1966, and this time he was successful. Democrats nominated a serious opponent, Delegate Joseph Johnson of Bristol, to challenge him in 1968, but this effort fell short and Rep. William Wampler (R) was re-elected to the second term of his second stint in Congress with 59.9% to Johnson’s 40.1%.
Rep. William Wampler (R-VA)
Born in Pennington Gap near the Kentucky border, Wampler was something of a political curiosity in Virginia, a lifelong Republican who never made any real attempts to woo conservative Byrd Democrats and who shunned the crusading, moralizing style that most conservative southern Republicans seemed to thrive on. To be clear, Wampler was still a fairly conservative Republican, voting against the Fair Housing Act, the Gun Control Act of 1968 and joined most of his fellow Republicans in opposing the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970. On the other hand, he also voted in favor of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, and was one of the few rural southern members to vote in favor of the Public Broadcasting Act. Wampler was also one of the few Republicans to consistently oppose any cuts to food stamps, and consistently fought for federal compensation for injured miners, mindful that opposition of union coal miners had ended his previous congressional career. With a broad smile and an avuncular, friendly manner, Wampler was nearly Scott’s opposite, their shared first names and political party notwithstanding. I imagine Wampler probably had some very choice words for Scott when he voted against the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969.
In the presidential election, this was Wallace’s second-worst district, with Nixon winning with a plurality of 47%, Humphrey coming in second at 37%, and Wallace a very distant third at 16%. Most Democrats here were labor liberals, and most Republicans were descendants of anti-secession mountaineers, which meant that conservative Democrats (Wallace’s usual source of support) were spread very thin here.
District 10
This district shrank in the 1966 redrawing, losing most of outer Fairfax County to the neighboring 8th district. This made the district somewhat more Democratic, but not enough to dramatically alter the partisan balance very much. As he always did, Rep. Joel Broyhill (R) drew a strong challenger, in this case Arlington County attorney and judge David Kinney. Kinney had been a promoter of Eugene McCarthy’s presidential run earlier in the year, and accused Broyhill of "16 years of obstructionism, 16 years of blatant racism, 16 years of 'no, no, no.' " The controversial Broyhill had defeated State Senator Clive DuVal of Falls Church in 1966 by 58.1% to 41.9%, and it appeared Broyhill had attracted few new admirers in the meantime, as he defeated Kinney by almost the same margin, 58.6% to 41.4%.
Rep Joel Broyhill (R-VA)
Like every other Virginia representative, Broyhill voted against the Fair Housing Act, but also voted in favor of the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, Environmental Quality Improvement Act. Like most Republicans, he also opposed the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970. Despite his conservative reputation, he supported the Gun Control Act of 1968, the Public Broadcasting Act, and the Occupational Health and Safety Act, perhaps knowing that his mostly suburban district would have reacted with hostility had he opposed these measures. Nonetheless, it can be inferred that Broyhill was generally still not given to moderation in most things, as the Almanac of American Politics from 1970 calls him a “hard line law-and-order man,” which seems to be a polite way of saying he didn’t like nonwhites and liberals telling him that prejudice and war were maybe not so good.
In the presidential race, this was one of the closest districts, with Nixon winning with 47%, and Humphrey coming in a close second at 42%. Nixon did best in the western parts of the district, while Humphrey did best in the City of Alexandria. This was Wallace’s worst district in the state, giving him only 12%. As in the 9th district, this was an area with few conservative Democrats, and most local conservatives (like Broyhill) were already Republicans.
Presidential Results
Richard Nixon won Virginia with a plurality of 43.36%, nearly the same as his national plurality. Hubert Humphrey came in second, with 32.49%, about ten percent worse than his national result. George Wallace came in third, with 23.64% of the vote, ten points better than his national numbers. Nixon’s best areas were rural northern and western Virginia, while Humphrey’s strongest strength with in the eastern urban corridor and the coalfields on the West Virginia border. Wallace’s strength came almost entirely from rural south central Virginia, where conservative Byrd Democrats had been strongest. While Wallace’s vote was stronger than average here, Virginia was actually Wallace’s second worst southern state after LBJ’s native Texas, the only southern state to support Humphrey. Virginia was also Humphrey’s best southern state after Texas (though this may say more about the rest of the south than Virginia).
Part 1 of the series here
