for Nixon, Reagan remained Nixon's leading challenger. Nixon won the next primary of importance, Oregon, on May 15 with 65% of the vote, and won all the following primaries except for California (June 4), where only Reagan appeared on the ballot. Reagan's victory in California gave him a plurality of the nationwide primary vote, but his poor showing in most other state primaries left him far behind Nixon in the delegate count. Total popular vote: Ronald Reagan: 1,696,632 (37.93%) Richard Nixon: 1,679,443 (37.54%) James A. Rhodes: 614,492 (13.74%) Nelson Rockefeller: 164,340 (3.67%) Unpledged: 140,639 (3.14%) Eugene McCarthy (write-in): 44,520 (1.00%) Harold Stassen: 31,655 (0.71%) John Volpe: 31,465 (0.70%) Others: 21,456 (0.51%) George Wallace (write-in): 15,291 (0.34%) Robert F. Kennedy (write-in): 14,524 (0.33%) Hubert Humphrey (write-in): 5,698 (0.13) Lyndon B. Johnson (write-in): 4,824 (0.11%) George W. Romney: 4,447 (0.10%) Raymond P. Shafer: 1,223 (0.03%) William Scranton: 724 (0.02%) Charles H. Percy: 689 (0.02%) Barry Goldwater: 598 (0.01%) John Lindsay: 591 (0.01%) Republican Convention As the 1968 Republican National Convention opened on August 5 in Miami Beach, Florida, the Associated Press estimated that Nixon had 656 delegate votes – 11 short of the number he needed to win the nomination. Reagan and Rockefeller were his only remaining opponents and they planned to unite their forces in a "stop-Nixon" movement. Because Goldwater had done well in the Deep South, delegates to the 1968 Republican National Convention included more Southern conservatives than in past conventions. There seemed potential for the conservative Reagan to be nominated if no victor emerged on the first ballot. Nixon narrowly secured the nomination on the first ballot, with the aid of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, who had switched parties in 1964. He selected dark horse Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew as his running mate, a choice which Nixon believed would unite the party, appealing to both Northern moderates and Southerners disaffected with the Democrats. Nixon's first choice for running mate was reportedly his longtime friend and ally Robert Finch, who was the Lieutenant Governor of California at the time. Finch declined that offer, but later accepted an appointment as the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare in Nixon's administration. With Vietnam a key issue, Nixon had strongly considered tapping his 1960 running mate, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., a former U.S. senator, ambassador to the UN, and ambassador twice to South Vietnam. As of the 2020 presidential election, 1968 was