Winning one of the closest elections in U.S. history, Republican challenger Richard Nixon defeated Vice President Hubert
Humphrey November 5, 1968. Because of the strong showing
of third-party candidate George Wallace, neither Nixon nor
Humphrey received more than 50 percent of the popular vote;
Nixon beat Humphrey by less than 500,000 votes. 

Nixon campaigned on a platform designed to reach the “silent
majority” of middle class and working class Americans. He
promised to “bring us together again,” and many Americans,
weary after years of antiwar and civil rights protests, were
happy to hear of peace returning to their streets. Foreign
policy was also a major factor in the election.

In one of the most crushing victories in the history of U.S.
presidential elections, incumbent Lyndon Baines Johnson
defeated Republican challenger Barry Goldwater, Sr.

With over 60 percent of the popular vote, Johnson turned
back the  conservative senator from Arizona to secure his
first full term in office after succeeding to the presidency
after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November
1963.  

During the 1964 campaign, Goldwater was decidedly critical
of Johnson’s liberal domestic agenda, railing against welfare
programs and defending his own decision to vote against the
Civil Rights Act passed by Congress earlier that year.

However, some of the most dramatic differences between the
two candidates appeared over the issue of Cold War foreign
policy. 

Topps 1964 Johnson VS. Goldwater 5-Cent Display Box.

In one of the greatest upsets in presidential election history,
Democratic incumbent Harry S. Truman defeats his Republican challenger, Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York, by just
over two million popular votes. In the days preceding the vote,
political analysts and polls were so behind Dewey that on
election night, long before all the votes were counted, the
Chicago Tribune published an early edition with the banner
headline “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN (above).”

Rare Truman Defeats Dewey Newspaper.

On June 8, 1864, Abraham Lincoln was nominated for another
term as president during the National Union (Republican) Party’s convention in Baltimore.

On February 17, 1801, Thomas Jefferson was elected the third
president of the United States. He served until 1809. The election constitutes the first peaceful transfer of power from one political
party to another in the United States. Jefferson had previously
served as the second vice president under John Adams.