The assassination of Robert Kennedy left Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy competing for the Democratic nomination. Humphrey won the nomination on the first ballot, but the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago was a disaster with the police battling peace activists who were protesting the War in Vietnam. The Republican convention went much more smoothly with former Vice President Richard Nixon also receiving the nomination on the first ballot. Alabama Governor George Wallace was a candidate of the American Independent Party. By election day the race was neck and neck, with Nixon pulling out a slim victory. Nixon received 31,785,480 (43.4%) votes, Humphrey received 31,275,166 votes, and Wallace received 9,906,473 votes.