Apr. 7, 1964 - Governor George Wallace of Alabama, who invaded Wisconsin to challenge the Johnson Administration’s civil rights legislation, rolled up more than 200,000 votes — 23% of the total vote — tonight in the state’s Presidential primary. This was about a third of the Democratic votes cast. Governor John Reynolds of Wisconsin, running as a favorite son pledged to President Johnson, won the election as expected, but the Alabama Governor piled up more than twice the total Reynolds had predicted he would get.
As 200 followers cheered at his headquarters at the Schroeder Hotel in Milwaukee, Wallace declared: “We have won a victory, and they know it of course. We shall carry on this fight. The people of Wisconsin have done more to break the trend toward centralized government than they realize.”
A large number of Republicans voted for the segregationist Alabama Governor, as they may do under the Wisconsin “crossover” primary law. But incomplete returns also indicated defection to Wallace among Democratic voters of Polish extraction on the south side of Milwaukee.
Wallace’s 23% of the total vote and 33% of the Democratic vote was a blow to Reynolds, who had predicted Wallace would get about 10%.
Wallace, who had never expected to win hands-down, more than achieved his purpose, which was to demonstrate Northern opposition to what he called the “civil wrongs bill.” He plans to carry the fight now to the Democratic National Convention, where he hopes to influence the platform provision on civil rights.
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