In '68, San Francisco Mayor was a finalist for VP nod

Would history have taken a different path if Hubert Humphrey had chosen San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto as his running mate? In late August 1968, just days before the Democratic National Convention opened in Chicago, Humphrey aides leaked the names of the leading candidates for the Vice Presidential nomination: Edmund Muskie, the Senator from Maine who was eventually picked ; Senator Fred Harris of Oklahoma; former Ambassador to France Sargent Shriver, the father of First Lady Maria Shriver; and Alioto.

In the general election, Humphrey lost California’s 40 electoral votes to Richard Nixon by about 220,000 votes. It’s possible – though not likely – that Alioto’s presence on the national ticket might have flipped 110,000 votes from Nixon to Humphrey. In that case, Nixon (in a three-way race that included former Alabama Governor George Wallace) would have had 261 electoral votes – not enough to win the Presidency. That would have sent the election to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Footnote: Alioto was one of two San Francisco Mayors to be short listed for Vice President; the other was Dianne Feinstein, who made Walter Mondale's list in 1984.