Against its historical background, the election of 1968 was one of the most important in American history. Among the issues to be decided was the conduct of the Vietnam War, the action of the welfare programs enacted by the outgoing administration’s “Great Society,” the status of race relations, and the mass civil unrest those issues sparked in towns and cities across the country. The incumbent president Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek a re-election, leaving the door open to his vice president Hubert Humphrey, against whom the Democratic party selected Richard Nixon.

On this day, November 5, in 1968 Richard Nixon won a closely divided national election against Humphrey and segregationist candidate George Wallace.

Nixon, who had a famously adversarial relationship with the press, promised a secret plan to end the Vietnam War, which helped him receive better coverage. Humphrey, considered a weak candidate from the outset — he was only selected at the behest of Johnson, and failed to receive endorsements from the party’s leading figures — was maligned by the press for his stance on Vietnam. The press coverage may not have determined the outcome of the election, but it contributed greatly.