WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is putting race at the center of his re-election campaign. If that rings familiar, that’s because another White House hopeful did the same half a century ago — and saw the strategy resonate with many Americans.
George Wallace was elected governor of Alabama as a Democrat in 1962 and vowed to safeguard “the great Anglo-Saxon Southland” while famously declaring, “I say, segregation now. Segregation tomorrow. Segregation forever.”
He ran for president six years later and won nearly 10 million votes on his own American Independent Party ticket, capturing Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi and one electoral vote in North Carolina. Those 46 total Electoral College votes remain the most recent won by any third party candidate in U.S. history.
