Election Night 1968 CBS News Part 1 

I was 18, watching the returns in our standing-room-only college dorm TV room. We were trying to be civil with each other, but the real resentment was that we had to be 21 to vote! We couldn't legally buy beer but could be sent to Vietnam, but not vote! I have NO sympathy whatever with 18-year-olds who NOW can't be bothered to go vote.

Thank you for putting this up. Fantastic!

It's great to be able to travel back in time to see things like this. Having the original commercials included makes it an even better experience. Thanks for posting!

This was an aircheck made by the Vanderbilt University TV News Archives, which in 1968, could only record in black-and-white. The CBS 1968 Election Night coverage, as was the case with NBC and ABC, was originally broadcast in color.

This miserable night was anticlimactic. All three candidates were horrible. The best candidates were gone: Bobby Kennedy was killed and Gene McCarthy lost the nomination to Hubert "Dump the Hump" Humphrey because LBJ's camp selected 65 percent of the delegates, even though 80 percent of the primary vote went for the anti-war candidates, Bobby and Gene.

Considering that my family didn't get our first color TV set until 1979, black & white is exactly how my parents would've watched this (not sure which network they did watch as I was only three weeks old by this point 👶).

Just in case anyone is curious, the walls are blue, Walter's desk is brown and the screen behind him is green when not being used. Curiously enough, the walls were still orange two days before this and on the monday between Walter was back at the regular Evening News desk. Painting in progress I suppose.

This is fascinating! I love history!

Tim Babcock: I think the bubbles covering the studio were as much for aesthetics as to prevent glare from studio lights from entering the camera lenses.

The first presidential election I remember. I was 6 years old. My dad and I watched it in suburban Chicago. It was a happy night; he voted for Nixon and hated both Wallace and Humphrey.

I read White's books in grad school and did a literature review on the '68 and '72 elections. This is great stuff.

no thanks are necessary. thank you for the videos. keep them coming.

@marksteveb There will be, I just have been busy as this is my off day from College during the week. Don't worry, there is more coming!

Not yet, I'm debating on putting it up next or doing the NBC coverage and waiting until the end.

Yes I do, I hope to get to it eventually.

no abc upstairs because my father was big for hhh, and downstairs, and i'll date myself here, the t.v. reception on channel 7, wkbw, the abc affiliate was very very bad. still got the map.

Most of Indiana's sample precincts must have been in Gary.

@marksteveb Well I am glad to hear you still won that contest! CBS was in to big of a rush in 1968, I guess they had not adopted the cautious pick strategy they use now. I don't guess you watched ABC's coverage did you?

Look at Dan Rather how young he was. He was a pretty cool dude back in the day.

Have you been able to get the earlier 30 minutes I sent you set up? Joe Benti's outline of the Vote Count vs Vote Estimate system is VERY neat, esp if you want to draw comparisons with 2000.

I got a question. This set was pretty different than previous sets they used. Are the cameras enclosed in plastic covers to shield the lighting out because the tote boards are so high?

It was considered to be a mortal sin to show cameras back then so they put the cameras in those space age looking bubbles. People started calling in and asked what those bubbles were for. Walter Cronkite had to explain that the cameras were in there. It defeated the whole purpose.

Notably, this is the last election in which a 3rd-party candidate actually won electoral votes.

do you have this in color its great to look back in time what it was like back then

Was this a mistake? 16:28 Cronkite: "Humphrey with a substantial lead in Vermont." Final VT total: Richard Nixon: 53% Hubert Humphrey: 44% George Wallace: 3% I am finding this VERY interesting to watch. I am feeling huge bias toward the Democrats in this coverage.

"the American voter is terrified of throwing his vote away" - after I voted that nite, I came home and ate cereal and crashed hard

I have the earlier 5:30-6:00 CST portion of the CBS coverage, do you have that?

my family was addicted to cbs and i remember very well the indiana nonsense. i was involved in a junior high contest and indiana was a key to my prediction. so, i moved my viewing to the basement while building revelle gemini space capsule model, I calmed-down listening to huntley-brinkley. don't mean to bore you, but but it brings back memories. by the way, nixon won the presidency and i won the contest. Nixon got impeached, i taught school, and we both were left emotional wrecks.

@efan2011 I'll see what I can do about uploading it, it is what Vanderbilt has listed as the "Evening News" for that day but it is really the 2nd half hour of CBS eleciton coverage, live reports from the Vice-Presidential HQs and an explination of how the returns are being made by Joe Benti. Also, another WLAC local update. The next half hour would have been WLAC's local coverage but that was not taped.

Stuart Metz was the opening announcer.

@buckspa Unfortunately your right. They call my home state later on in the night way off and with Humphrey in second place, he finished in third at the end of the count. CBS was competing with NBC for the ratings. NBC was way faster and a lot more accurate in the estimate of the vote. I have not seen ABC's coverage yet so I don't know about their methods.

@Radar19792006 Nope, I wish I did. The Vanderbilt Archive is very random at recording things.

The whole Indiana vote is interesting...at 6:35pm...CBS has Nixon in trouble in Indiana and maybe the whole Midwest but by 7:15pm, NBC calls Indiana for Nixon.......quite a difference

@marksteveb Oh okay! Thanks

It's interesting that there is little talk of "swing" states vs. non-swing states. Most states seem to be considered up for grabs. (I wonder when the red/blue stuff started...)

That crisis commercial is creepy.

in reviewing this, i noted a news reporter observed nixon was pale and isolated. they were not trying to resurrect memories of nixon's appearence during the 1960 debate, were they??? i remember that ground sirloin report, and my father, a rabbid democrat, said nixon must be nervous and was trying to avoid nausea, but he put it a little more crudely. it was no surprise he loved the cbs coverage.

any further videos today. not being pushy, just asking, although i would be very happy if there were.

Crazy to think how even for the shortest period of time, George Wallace, a THIRD PARTY CANDIDATE was in the lead. Yes, he was a horrible racist. But he has done something that was and still is unheard of and almost impossible to do. And that was lead at one point. And that does deserve SOME recognition And yes, I am talking Electoral College.

was only 6mos old!

i was only 6mos old :(

Do you happen to have or can get the 1968 DNC and RNC conventions all 4 days

Their sample precincts were way off - Nixon won Indiana 50%-38%.

If Wallace does not get in the race, Nixon would have won comfortable in the '68 General Elections. However with Wallace winning a couple of what is not solid Red states for the GOP in the Deep South, it opened the door for Humphrey. Thus Wallace's plan to deadlock the 2 main candidates here in not getting enough electoral college votes and force this race to a final vote by the US House of Reps aka Congress almost worked. This would indeed one of the closest presidential races of all time and possibly having Humphrey pull off a Truman type upset. Especially after the riots and fiasco at the DNC in Chicago all but assured Nixon would win the election at the start of the general election campaign in late summer.

@Radar19792006 If you want to you can, or I can pay you for a DVD copy if I can get the money. Let me know in a PM! Thanks!

third parties can win states

I can't see it now on November 8th. Hillary Clinton is Hubert Humphrey, Donald Trump is Richard Nixon and Gary Johnson is George Wallace. And boy that will be a thrill. #Trump2016

Great win by Nixon

Who I would've voted 1788-1792 George Washington 1796-1804 Thomas Jefferson 1808-1812 James Madison 1816-1820 James Monroe 1824 Henry Clay 1828 John Quincy Adams 1832 Henry Clay 1836 William Henry Harrison/Hugh Lawson White (Whichever Whig they ran in KY) 1840 William Henry Harrison 1844 Henry Clay 1848 Zachary Taylor 1852 Winfield Scott 1856 John C. Frémont 1860-1864 Abraham Lincoln 1868-1872 Ulysses S. Grant 1876 Samuel Tilden 1880 James Garfield 1884-1892 Grover Cleveland 1896-1900 William McKinley 1904 Theodore Roosevelt 1908-1912 William Howard Taft 1916 Charles Evans Hughes 1920 Warren G. Harding 1924 Calvin Coolidge 1928 Herbert Hoover 1932-1944 Stay home 1948 Harry Truman 1952-1956 Dwight Eisenhower 1960 Richard Nixon 1964 Barry Goldwater 1968-1972 Richard Nixon 1976 Ronald Reagan (write-in) 1980-1984 Ronald Reagan 1988-1992 George H. W. Bush 1996 Bob Dole 2000-2004 George W. Bush 2008 Stay home 2012 Mitt Romney 2016 Donald Trump