American Independent Party

The party's support base initially included individuals from the Democratic Party (United States) who were opposed to the desegregation policies prevalent at the time, and it achieved notable electoral success in some Southern states.

Over time, the party became closer to the conservative movement and it renounced policy against racial equality. Today, the party still exists but many of its original members have left: most of the earlier members returned to the Democratic Party after the 1969 election and its later members have moved to the Constitution Party.

In 1967, the AIP was founded by Bill Shearer and his wife, Eileen Knowland Shearer. It nominated George C. Wallace (Democrat) as its presidential candidate and retired U.S. Air Force General Curtis E. LeMay as the vice-presidential candidate. Wallace ran on every state ballot in the election, though he did not represent the American Independent Party in all fifty states: in Connecticut, for instance, he was listed on the ballot as the nominee of the "George Wallace Party." The Wallace/LeMay ticket received 13.5 percent of the popular vote and 46 electoral votes from the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama. No third-party candidate has won more than one electoral vote since the 1968 election.^[5][6]