Although Alaska has only voted Democratic once, which was for Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, during the state's first four presidential elections Alaska was not substantially more Republican than the nation at-large: indeed owing to a fairly strong third-party campaign Nixon won 2.57 percent less of the vote in Alaska than over the entire country, although McGovern received 2.88 percent less than his national share.[3]
While Alaska would prove to be John Schmitz's second strongest state after Idaho,[4] he failed to equal the success of George Wallace’s campaign in the previous election.[1] This is the only time that Alaska voted to the left of Hawaii.