University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock remembers watching in 1968 when Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, announced he was ending his campaign, the last time a sitting president eligible to run for reelection decided not to do so.
At the time, the nation was divided over the Vietnam War. Johnson, like President Joe Biden, was under a glaring political microscope before his decision not to run. Johnson’s weak performance in the New Hampshire primary that year surprised political experts and campaign reporters. Biden’s poor debate performance against former President Donald Trump in Atlanta last month began his campaign downfall.
“Neither were hitting home runs,” Bullock said of both men in a telephone interview.
Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
One difference Bullock noted is that Johnson announced he was ending his reelection bid at the end of March, several months before the Democratic National Convention. Biden made his decision just a few weeks before this year’s convention.
The 1968 convention was in Chicago. This year’s convention, perhaps ironically, is also in the Windy City.
Bullock said then, like now, party elders’ influence in the process could be significant. In 1968, Democratic Party bosses still played a major role in nominating a candidate because there were fewer state primaries. The Washington Post reported Sunday that more than 100 Democratic members of Congress and governors have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be the party’s standard-bearer.
Another similarity, Bullock observed, are the questions about the Republican Party’s nominee. In 1968, Richard Nixon was the GOP’s pick although he lost the presidential election eight years earlier to John F. Kennedy. This year, Trump is trying to return to the White House after losing the 2020 election. In both instances, there have been concerns about their electability. Nixon won the 1968 general election.
Before Johnson, the last time an incumbent president decided not to run for reelection was Harry Truman in 1952. Truman lost the New Hampshire primary that year to then-U.S. Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tennessee.
“I have served my country long, and I think efficiently and honestly,” he said in the speech, according to a transcript from the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. “I shall not accept a renomination. I do not feel that it is my duty to spend another four years in the White House.”
Then, presidential primaries weren’t held in every state. Party leaders chose the nominee at their conventions. One of the candidates that year was U.S. Sen. Richard B. Russell of Georgia. Russell lost the nomination to Adlai Stevenson, who won on the third ballot.
That was the last open, or brokered, convention by the Democrats, noted Georgia Southern University professor Patrick Novotny.
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The last time Republicans had a brokered convention was in 1948 when Thomas Dewey won the nomination in Philadelphia.
“We can thank the growth in primary elections and the growth of TV (don’t want to have those messy debates of the open, or brokered, conventions in every living room in America, now, do we, think party leaders),” Novotny wrote in an email.
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