George Wallace Campaign Button, 1968

George Wallace, Alabama's segregationist governor, was the American Independent Party's presidential candidate in 1968. Wallace hoped his "law and order" and populist rhetoric would sway enough voters to throw the election into the House of Representatives. Though he captured five Deep South states and 46 electoral votes it wasn't enough. Republican Richard Nixon's 301 electoral votes -- over Democrat Hubert Humphrey's 191 -- was thirty-one more than needed.