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Robert Kennedy had resigned his position as Attorney-General and won a Senate seat in New York in 1964. As the 1968 presidential election approached, his political advisors had been encouraging him to make a decision, concerned that Kennedy was running out of time to announce his candidacy. Kennedy knew it would not be easy to defeat Johnson. Senator Eugene McCarthy had announced his intention to run against Johnson for the Democratic nomination on November 30, 1967. Following McCarthy's announcement, Kennedy told Senator George McGovern of South Dakota that he was concerned about McGovern and others making early commitments to McCarthy. At a breakfast with reporters at the National Press Club on January 30, 1968, Kennedy once again indicated that he had no plans to run against Johnson, but a few weeks later he had changed his mind.
In early February 1968, after the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, Kennedy received encouraging letters from writer Pete Hamill telling him that many Americans were counting on him to put an end to the mounting casualties. On February 29, 1968, the Kerner Commission issued a report on the racial unrest that had affected American cities during the previous summer. Its findings were largely dismissed by the Johnson administration. Kennedy asked his advisor, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr: "How can we possibly survive five more years of Lyndon Johnson?" There was not unanimous opinion among Kennedy's friends, family and political advisors about whether or not he would launch a primary challenge against Johnson. Kennedy's wife Ethel supported his decision, but his brother Ted didn't think it was a good idea.
On March 10, Kennedy traveled to California where he met with civil rights activist César Chávez, who was ending a 25-day hunger strike. On the trip, Kennedy told his aide Peter Edelman that he had decided to run. Kennedy agreed to Eugene McCarthy's request to delay an announcement of his intentions until after the New Hampshire primary. On March 12, Johnson won a narrow victory in the New Hampshire primary against McCarthy. It had been Kennedy's hope that McCarthy would agree to withdraw from the race, but now knew that McCarthy would not do so after such a strong showing in New Hampshire.
On March 16, Kennedy made the formal announcement of his candidacy. Kennedy made this announcement from the same location in the Senate Caucus Room where John F. Kennedy had announced his presidential candidacy in January 1960.He said:
"I am today announcing my candidacy for the presidency of the United States. I do not run for the presidency merely to oppose any man, but to propose new policies. I run because I am convinced that this country is on a perilous course and because I have such strong feelings about what must be done, and I feel that I'm obliged to do all I can."
McCarthy supporters called Kennedy an opportunist. Liberal Democrats became concerned that votes among supporters of the anti-war movement would now be split between McCarthy and Kennedy. But confronted with two opponents, Lyndon Johnson saw the likelihood of his re-election declining and on March 31, Johnson stunned the nation by announcing that he would not run for re-election. He made the announcement during a televised speech, in which he also announced a partial halt to the bombing of Vietnam and proposed peace negotiations with the North Vietnamese.
Vice President Hubert Humphrey, long a champion of labor unions and civil rights, entered the race on April 27. He had the support of the party "establishment". Humphrey had announced his candidacy too late to be a formal candidate in most of the primaries. Humphrey had the support of the president and many Democratic insiders, which gave him a better chance at gaining convention delegates in the non-primary states.
Kennedy's plan was to win the nomination through popular support in the primaries. He delivered his first campaign speech on March 18 at Kansas State University, where he had agreed to give a lecture honoring former Kansas governor and former Republican Presidential candidate Alfred Landon. At Kansas State, Kennedy spoke to a crowd of 14,500 students. In his speech, Kennedy apologized for early mistakes and attacked President Johnson's Vietnam policy saying, "I was involved in many of the early decisions on Vietnam, decisions which helped set us on our present path," but he added that "past error is not excuse for its own perpetration." Later that day at the University of Kansas, Kennedy spoke to another crowd of 19,000. He said, "I don't think that we have to shoot each other, to beat each other, to curse each other and criticize each other, I think that we can do better in this country. And that is why I run for President of the United States."
Kennedy went on to campaign in the Democratic primaries in Indiana, Washington, D.C., Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, and California. His speeches emphasized racial equality, non-aggression in foreign policy, and social improvement. His campaign attracted support among America's youth, while it did not engender support the business community. Businesses leaders criticized him for the tax increases that would be necessary to fund Kennedy's proposed social programs. During a speech given at the Indiana University Medical School, Kennedy was asked, "Where are we going to get the money to pay for all these new programs you're proposing?" Kennedy referred to the medical students and said "From you."
Although he enjoyed support from many in the anti-war movement, Kennedy did not express support an immediate withdrawal of U.S. military personnel from Vietnam or an immediate end to the conflict. He said that he wanted to end the conflict by strengthening the South Vietnamese military and reducing corruption within the South Vietnamese government. He supported a peace settlement between North and South Vietnam.
Kennedy was successful in four state primaries: Indiana, Nebraska, South Dakota, and California; as well as Washington D.C. McCarthy won six state primaries: Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Oregon, New Jersey, and Illinois. Of the state primaries in which they campaigned directly against one another, Kennedy won three (Indiana, Nebraska, and California) while McCarthy was only successful in one (Oregon).
On April 4, Kennedy made his first campaign stop in Indiana at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend. This was followed by a speech at Ball State University in Muncie. After leaving the stage at Ball State, Kennedy boarded a plane for Indianapolis. When he arrived in Indianapolis he was informed of Martin Luther King's assassination. Later that evening, Kennedy made a brief speech on the assassination of King to a crowd gathered for a political rally at 17th and Broadway, an African American neighborhood near the north side of Indianapolis. He called for peace and compassion, and his words were credited with an absence of violent protest in Indianapolis, in contrast to took place in other cities across the country that night. After attending Dr. King's funeral in Atlanta, Georgia, Kennedy resumed campaigning on April 10.
The Indiana primary was held on May 7 and Kennedy won with 42 percent of the vote. The favorite son candidate Governor Branigan was second with 31 percent of the vote; and McCarthy came in third with 27 percent. Kennedy also won the Nebraska primary on May 14, with 51.4 percent of the vote to McCarthy's 31 percent.
The Oregon primary posed several challenges to Kennedy's campaign. His platform, which called for an end to poverty and hunger, and which focused on minority issues, did not resonate with Oregon voters. The Kennedy campaign pointed out that McCarthy had voted against a minimum wage law and repeal of the poll tax in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The McCarthy campaign responded with charges that Kennedy illegally taped Martin Luther King, Jr. as United States Attorney General. On May 28, McCarthy won the Oregon primary with 44.7 percent; Kennedy received 38.8 percent of votes.
After losing momentum in Oregon, Kennedy hoped to take the California and South Dakota primaries on June 4. The demographics of California appeared to be right for his voter-appeal. But McCarthy's California campaign was well-funded and organized and a defeat would have been a serious blow to his hopes of winning the nomination. Kennedy had some disadvantages in the South Dakota primary. McCarthy was a Senator in neighboring Minnesota and Humphrey had been raised in South Dakota.
On June 1, during the final days of the California campaign, Kennedy and McCarthy met for a televised debate. The debate turned out to be a draw, but after the debate, undecided voters favored Kennedy over McCarthy by a 2 to 1 margin. Kennedy's campaign was nothing if not energetic andon June 3, Kennedy traveled to San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Long Beach. He told Theodore H. White on June 4 that he believed that he could sway Democratic Party leaders with wins in both California and South Dakota.
Kennedy won the South Dakota primary by a wide margin, beating McCarthy, 50 percent to 20 percent of the vote. More importantly, Kennedy won in California with 46 percent of the vote to McCarthy's 42 percent. Despite having received only a plurality of the vote, Kennedy won all of the state's delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Around midnight on June 4, Kennedy addressed supporters at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, confidently promising to heal the many divisions within the country.
After addressing his supporters during the early morning hours of June 5, in a ballroom at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Kennedy left the ballroom through a service area to greet kitchen workers. In a crowded kitchen passageway, Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian-born Jordanian, fired off a .22 caliber revolver and shot Kennedy in the head at close range. Following the shooting, Kennedy was rushed to Central Receiving Hospital and then transferred to The Good Samaritan Hospital, where he died early in the morning on June 6.
Kennedy's body was returned to New York City, where he lay in repose at St. Patrick's Cathedral for several days before the Requiem Mass was held there on June 8. His younger brother, U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, eulogized him with the words: "My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it." Later that day, a funeral train carried Kennedy's body from New York to Washington, D.C., where he was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.