Robert F. Kennedy for President 1968 | |
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Campaign | 1968 United States presidential election (Democratic primaries) |
Candidate | Robert F. Kennedy U.S. Senator from New York (1965–1968) |
Affiliation | Democratic Party |
Status | Announced: March 16, 1968 Assassinated: June 6, 1968 |
Key people | Joseph Gargan, chairman[1] |
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Personal U.S. Attorney General U.S. Senator from New York Presidential campaign Assassination and legacy |
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The Robert F. Kennedy presidential campaign began on March 16, 1968, when Kennedy, a United States Senator from New York, mounted an unlikely challenge to incumbent Democratic United States President Lyndon B. Johnson. Following an upset in the New Hampshire primary, Johnson announced on March 31 that he would not seek re-election to a second full term. Kennedy still faced two rival candidates for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination: the leading challenger United States Senator Eugene McCarthy and Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey had entered the race after Johnson's withdrawal, but Kennedy and McCarthy remained the main challengers to the policies of the Johnson administration. During the spring of 1968, Kennedy led a leading campaign in presidential primary elections throughout the United States. Kennedy's campaign was especially active in Indiana, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, California, and Washington, D.C. After declaring victory in the California primary on June 4, 1968, Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He died on June 6, 1968 at Good Samaritan Hospital. Had Kennedy been elected president, he would have been the first brother of a former U.S. president (John F. Kennedy) to win the presidency himself.