Of interest here is what happened to Wallace's 1968 voters. Did they return to the Democratic fold or did they become Republicans. By looking at the subsequent election, 1972, we see clear movement to the Republican camp.
Philadelphia has 66 wards. In '68, Wallace received 11.95% of the vote in the city. To look at the movement rightward among these voters, I've decided to concentrate on the 10 wards where Wallace did best (wards 40, 7, 45, 31, 33, 25, 41, 66, 65, and 39). If Nixon did well in these wards in '72, there's reason to believe that many of these Wallace voters were becoming more Republican.
In the '72 election, Nixon received 48.3% of the vote in the city of Philadelphia. Thus, despite the nationwide Nixon landslide, McGovern managed to win the city. Of the 66 wards, Nixon won 28.
In looking at the "Wallace Wards" from '68, we see that Nixon won all of them. In fact, 2 of the most Republican wards in 1972 were among the top 10 Wallace wards in '68. Here is a ranking of each top Wallace ward in terms of how Republican it was in 1972 (1 being most Republican, 66 being least Republican) as well as Nixon's vote %.
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Ward 40---25th most Rep. (55.9%)
Ward 7----18th most Rep. (58.4%)
Ward 45---22nd most Rep. (57.0%)
Ward 31---13th most Rep. (59.3%)
Ward 33---17th most Rep. (58.4%)
Ward 25---15th most Rep. (59.0%)
Ward 41---11th most Rep. (60.1%)
Ward 66---2nd most Rep. (65.4%)
Ward 65---12th most Rep. (59.8%)
Ward 39---5th most Rep. (62.9%)
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One might wonder whether this Nixon support is simply a "pro-incumbent" effect. Next up we'll look at what happened in these wards in 1976 and 1980.
