The Election of 1960
The election of 1960 was held on Tuesday, November 8, 1960. Incumbent President, Dwight Eisenhower, was not eligible for re-election because he was the first President affected by the twenty-second amendment to the constitution, which prevented a president from being elected more than twice. This was also the first presidential election in which voters in Alaska and Hawaii were able to participate, as both had become states in 1959. There were 537 electoral votes, up from 531 in 1956, because of the addition of 2 U.S. Senators and 1 U.S. Representative from each of the new states.
The 1960 presidential election was the closest election since 1916. Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy received 112,827 (0.17%) more votes than his opponent, Republican Richard M. Nixon, although the electoral votes gave Kennedy an Electoral College victory of 303 to 219. Nixon was the first candidate in American presidential electoral history to lose an election despite carrying a majority of the states. This election is also notable because it was the first in which both major party candidates were born in the 20th century.
The candidates seeking he 1960 Democratic presidential nomination were Kennedy, Governor Pat Brown of California, Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, and Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota. Symington, Stevenson, and Johnson all declined to campaign in the presidential primaries. At that time not every state held primaries and it was possible to win the nomination on the convention floor.
Kennedy had his detractors within his own party, including former President Harry S. Truman, who was supporting Symington. These critics said that Kennedy was too youthful and inexperienced to be president and suggested that he would be better to serve as the running mate for another Democrat. Kennedy rejected these criticisms and told reporters "I'm not running for vice-president, I'm running for president."
During the primaries, Kennedy's Roman Catholic religion was an issue. Kennedy first challenged Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey in the Wisconsin primary and defeated him. Kennedy's sisters, brothers, and wife Jacqueline campaigned the state for him. Humphrey later complained, "I felt like an independent merchant competing against a chain store." Kennedy benefited from a sizeable Catholic population. Humphrey decided to challenge Kennedy in the heavily Protestant state of West Virginia. The two participated in the first televised debate of 1960 in that state. Humphrey's campaign was low on funds and could not compete with Kennedy's well-financed campaign. Kennedy defeated Humphrey with over 60% of the vote, and Humphrey ended his presidential campaign. Kennedy competed in nine presidential primaries, while Johnson and Symington, failed to campaign in any.
Adlai Stevenson had twice been the Democratic Party's presidential candidate and retained a loyal following of party liberals. But his two landslide defeats to Dwight Eisenhower attached a "loser" label to him and many in the party looked for a "fresh face" who was more electable. Following the primaries, Kennedy traveled around the nation speaking to state delegations. When the Democratic Convention opened, Kennedy was the front runner, but was short of the delegate total he needed to win.
The 1960 Democratic National Convention was held in Los Angeles, California. In the week before the convention opened, Johnson and Stevenson officially announced their candidacies. Johnson challenged Kennedy to a televised debate before a joint meeting of the Texas and Massachusetts delegations and Kennedy accepted. Johnson was not able to expand his delegate support beyond the South. Stevenson's failure to launch his candidacy publicly until the week of the convention meant that many liberal delegates who might have supported him were already pledged to Kennedy. Kennedy was able to win the nomination on the first ballot with 806 votes. Johnson finished second with 409 and no other candidate had more than 86 votes.
In a move that surprised many, Kennedy asked Johnson to be his running mate. Kennedy realized that he could not be elected without support of Southern Democrats, most of whom had supported Johnson. Kennedy offered Johnson the vice-presidential nomination at the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel at 10:15 a.m. on July 14, 1960, the morning after being nominated for president. According to Robert F. Kennedy, his brother would have preferred Stuart Symington as his running-mate.
Vice-President Richard Nixon was expected to face a serious challenge for the Republican nomination from New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, the leader of the Republican moderate wing. But Rockefeller announced that he would not be a candidate for president after a national tour which led him to believe that Nixon was too strong of a candidate. After Rockefeller's withdrawal, Nixon faced no significant opposition for the nomination. At the 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Nixon was the overwhelming choice of the delegates. He received 1,321 votes. His closest rival was conservative Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona who received 10 votes. Nixon chose former Massachusetts Senator and United Nations Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., as his vice-presidential candidate. At this convention Nixon promised to campaign in every state during his campaign.
During the campaign, Kennedy accused Eisenhower and the Republicans of letting the nation had fall behind the Soviet Union in the Cold War. He promised that as president he would "get America moving again." Nixon responded that, if elected, he would continue the "peace and prosperity" that Eisenhower had brought the nation in the 1950s. Nixon also charged that with the nation engaged in a Cold War with the Soviets, that Kennedy was too young and inexperienced to be trusted with the presidency.
By August 1960, most polls gave Nixon a slim lead over Kennedy, and many political pundits regarded Nixon as the favorite. But Nixon was plagued by bad luck throughout the campaign. In August, President Eisenhower, who had long been ambivalent about Nixon, held a televised press conference in which reporter Charles Mohr of Time Magazine mentioned Nixon's claims that he had been a valuable administration insider and adviser. Mohr asked Eisenhower if he could give an example of a major idea of Nixon's that he had heeded. Eisenhower facetiously answered, "If you give me a week, I might think of one." Both Eisenhower and Nixon later claimed that this was said in jest, but the remark hurt Nixon. The Democrats even turned Eisenhower's statement into a television commercial.
At the Republican Convention, Nixon had pledged to campaign in all 50 states. In August, Nixon injured his knee on a car door while campaigning in North Carolina. The knee became infected and Nixon had to cease campaigning for two weeks. When he left Walter Reed Hospital, Nixon refused to abandon his pledge to visit every state and he spent time visiting states that he had no chance of winning, or that had few electoral votes. Nixon spent the last weekend before the election campaigning in Alaska, which had only three electoral votes, while Kennedy campaigned in large states such as New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile Lyndon Johnson vigorously campaigned for Kennedy and was instrumental in helping the Democrats to carry several Southern states that were skeptical about the young senator. Ambassador Lodge, Nixon's running mate, was not as energetic in his campaigning. He made a pledge—not approved by Nixon—that as President Nixon would name an African-American to his cabinet. The remark was seen as pandering and offended both African-Americans as well as southern whites.
An important part of the campaign were the four Kennedy-Nixon debates. These were the first presidential debates ever and also the first to be shown on television. They attracted enormous publicity. Nixon insisted on campaigning until just a few hours before the first debate started. He had not completely recovered from his hospital stay and looked pale, sickly, underweight, and tired. He also refused makeup for the first debate, and as a result his beard stubble showed prominently on black-and-white TV screens. (This was in the days before color television.) Nixon's mother called him immediately following the debate to ask if he was sick. Kennedy, by contrast, appeared tanned, confident, and relaxed during the debate. About 70 million people watched the first debate.
After the first debate, polls showed Kennedy moving into a slight lead over Nixon. For the remaining three debates Nixon wore television makeup, and appeared better prepared. But the remaining three debates had about 20 million fewer viewers than the first one. For the third debate split screen technology was used. Nixon was in Los Angeles while Kennedy was in New York. The men appear to be in the same room, thanks to identical sets.
Kennedy faced reluctance on the part of Protestant voters because of his Roman Catholic religion. Some Protestants, especially Southern Baptists and Lutherans, feared that having a Catholic in the White House would give undue influence to the Pope in the nation's affairs. To confront the religious issue, Kennedy made a speech before the nation's newspaper editors in which he criticized the prominence they gave to the religious issue over other topics such as foreign policy. On September 12, Kennedy told the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, "I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president who also happens to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my Church on public matters – and the Church does not speak for me." Kennedy also asked if one-quarter of Americans were relegated to second-class citizenship just because they were Roman Catholic.
When Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the civil-rights leader, was arrested in Georgia while leading a civil rights march, Nixon refused to become involved in the incident, but Kennedy placed calls to local political authorities to get King released from jail. He also called King's father and wife. As a result, King's father endorsed Kennedy, and he received favorable publicity in the African-American community.
Kennedy also took advantage of increased Cold War tension by telling voters that there was a "missile gap" between the United States and Soviet Union. He argued that under the Republicans the Soviets had developed a major advantage in the numbers of nuclear missiles. In an October 18 speech he said that several senior US military officers had long criticized the Eisenhower Administration's defense spending policies.
As the campaign moved into the final two weeks, the polls predicted a Kennedy victory. President Eisenhower made a vigorous campaign tour for Nixon over the last 10 days before the election. Eisenhower's support gave Nixon a badly needed boost. Nixon began to gain momentum and by election day the polls indicated a virtual tie.
On election night, November 8, 1960, Nixon watched the election returns from his suite at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, while Kennedy watched the returns at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. As the early returns poured in from large Northeastern and Midwestern cities such as Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago, Kennedy opened a large lead in the popular and electoral vote. However, as later returns came in from rural and suburban areas in the Midwest, the Rocky Mountain states, and the Pacific Coast states, Nixon began to close the gap, but his momentum was not sufficient to do so. Before midnight, The New York Times had gone to press with the headline "Kennedy Elected President".
Nixon made a speech at about 3 am, and hinted that Kennedy might have won the election, but it was not until the afternoon of Wednesday, November 9, that Nixon finally conceded the election, and Kennedy claimed victory. In the national popular vote, Kennedy beat Nixon by less than two tenths of one percentage point (0.17%), the closest popular vote margin of the 20th century. In the Electoral College, Kennedy's victory was larger, as he took 303 electoral votes to Nixon's 219 (269 were needed to win). Fifteen southern electors, eight from Mississippi, six from Alabama, and one from Oklahoma, refused to vote for either Kennedy or Nixon. Instead, they cast their votes for Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, a conservative Democrat, even though Byrd had not been a candidate for president. Kennedy carried 12 states by three percentage points or less, while Nixon won six states by similarly narrow margins. Kennedy carried all but three states in the populous Northeast, and he also carried the large states of Michigan, Illinois, and Missouri in the Midwest. With Lyndon Johnson's help, he also carried most of the South, including the large states of North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas. Nixon carried all but three of the Western states (including California), and he ran strong in the farm belt states, where his biggest victory was in Ohio.
In his victory speech, Kennedy said, "To all Americans, I say that the next four years are going to be difficult and challenging years for us all that a supreme national effort will be needed to move this country safely through the 1960s. I ask your help and I can assure you that every degree of my spirit that I possess will be devoted to the long range interest of the United States and to the cause of freedom around the world."
Some have claimed that Kennedy benefited from vote fraud, especially in Texas, where Kennedy's running mate Lyndon B. Johnson was senator, and Illinois, home of Mayor Richard Daley's powerful Chicago political machine. If Nixon had carried these two states, he would have earned 270 electoral votes, one more than the 269 needed to win. Republicans tried and failed to overturn the results in both Illinois and Texas. Nixon's campaign staff urged him to pursue recounts and challenge the validity of Kennedy's victory in several states, especially in Illinois, Missouri and New Jersey, but Nixon gave a speech three days after the election stating that he would not contest the election.
The 1960 presidential election was the closest election since 1916. Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy received 112,827 (0.17%) more votes than his opponent, Republican Richard M. Nixon, although the electoral votes gave Kennedy an Electoral College victory of 303 to 219. Nixon was the first candidate in American presidential electoral history to lose an election despite carrying a majority of the states. This election is also notable because it was the first in which both major party candidates were born in the 20th century.
The candidates seeking he 1960 Democratic presidential nomination were Kennedy, Governor Pat Brown of California, Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, and Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota. Symington, Stevenson, and Johnson all declined to campaign in the presidential primaries. At that time not every state held primaries and it was possible to win the nomination on the convention floor.
Kennedy had his detractors within his own party, including former President Harry S. Truman, who was supporting Symington. These critics said that Kennedy was too youthful and inexperienced to be president and suggested that he would be better to serve as the running mate for another Democrat. Kennedy rejected these criticisms and told reporters "I'm not running for vice-president, I'm running for president."
During the primaries, Kennedy's Roman Catholic religion was an issue. Kennedy first challenged Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey in the Wisconsin primary and defeated him. Kennedy's sisters, brothers, and wife Jacqueline campaigned the state for him. Humphrey later complained, "I felt like an independent merchant competing against a chain store." Kennedy benefited from a sizeable Catholic population. Humphrey decided to challenge Kennedy in the heavily Protestant state of West Virginia. The two participated in the first televised debate of 1960 in that state. Humphrey's campaign was low on funds and could not compete with Kennedy's well-financed campaign. Kennedy defeated Humphrey with over 60% of the vote, and Humphrey ended his presidential campaign. Kennedy competed in nine presidential primaries, while Johnson and Symington, failed to campaign in any.
Adlai Stevenson had twice been the Democratic Party's presidential candidate and retained a loyal following of party liberals. But his two landslide defeats to Dwight Eisenhower attached a "loser" label to him and many in the party looked for a "fresh face" who was more electable. Following the primaries, Kennedy traveled around the nation speaking to state delegations. When the Democratic Convention opened, Kennedy was the front runner, but was short of the delegate total he needed to win.
The 1960 Democratic National Convention was held in Los Angeles, California. In the week before the convention opened, Johnson and Stevenson officially announced their candidacies. Johnson challenged Kennedy to a televised debate before a joint meeting of the Texas and Massachusetts delegations and Kennedy accepted. Johnson was not able to expand his delegate support beyond the South. Stevenson's failure to launch his candidacy publicly until the week of the convention meant that many liberal delegates who might have supported him were already pledged to Kennedy. Kennedy was able to win the nomination on the first ballot with 806 votes. Johnson finished second with 409 and no other candidate had more than 86 votes.
In a move that surprised many, Kennedy asked Johnson to be his running mate. Kennedy realized that he could not be elected without support of Southern Democrats, most of whom had supported Johnson. Kennedy offered Johnson the vice-presidential nomination at the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel at 10:15 a.m. on July 14, 1960, the morning after being nominated for president. According to Robert F. Kennedy, his brother would have preferred Stuart Symington as his running-mate.
Vice-President Richard Nixon was expected to face a serious challenge for the Republican nomination from New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, the leader of the Republican moderate wing. But Rockefeller announced that he would not be a candidate for president after a national tour which led him to believe that Nixon was too strong of a candidate. After Rockefeller's withdrawal, Nixon faced no significant opposition for the nomination. At the 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Nixon was the overwhelming choice of the delegates. He received 1,321 votes. His closest rival was conservative Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona who received 10 votes. Nixon chose former Massachusetts Senator and United Nations Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., as his vice-presidential candidate. At this convention Nixon promised to campaign in every state during his campaign.
During the campaign, Kennedy accused Eisenhower and the Republicans of letting the nation had fall behind the Soviet Union in the Cold War. He promised that as president he would "get America moving again." Nixon responded that, if elected, he would continue the "peace and prosperity" that Eisenhower had brought the nation in the 1950s. Nixon also charged that with the nation engaged in a Cold War with the Soviets, that Kennedy was too young and inexperienced to be trusted with the presidency.
By August 1960, most polls gave Nixon a slim lead over Kennedy, and many political pundits regarded Nixon as the favorite. But Nixon was plagued by bad luck throughout the campaign. In August, President Eisenhower, who had long been ambivalent about Nixon, held a televised press conference in which reporter Charles Mohr of Time Magazine mentioned Nixon's claims that he had been a valuable administration insider and adviser. Mohr asked Eisenhower if he could give an example of a major idea of Nixon's that he had heeded. Eisenhower facetiously answered, "If you give me a week, I might think of one." Both Eisenhower and Nixon later claimed that this was said in jest, but the remark hurt Nixon. The Democrats even turned Eisenhower's statement into a television commercial.
At the Republican Convention, Nixon had pledged to campaign in all 50 states. In August, Nixon injured his knee on a car door while campaigning in North Carolina. The knee became infected and Nixon had to cease campaigning for two weeks. When he left Walter Reed Hospital, Nixon refused to abandon his pledge to visit every state and he spent time visiting states that he had no chance of winning, or that had few electoral votes. Nixon spent the last weekend before the election campaigning in Alaska, which had only three electoral votes, while Kennedy campaigned in large states such as New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile Lyndon Johnson vigorously campaigned for Kennedy and was instrumental in helping the Democrats to carry several Southern states that were skeptical about the young senator. Ambassador Lodge, Nixon's running mate, was not as energetic in his campaigning. He made a pledge—not approved by Nixon—that as President Nixon would name an African-American to his cabinet. The remark was seen as pandering and offended both African-Americans as well as southern whites.
An important part of the campaign were the four Kennedy-Nixon debates. These were the first presidential debates ever and also the first to be shown on television. They attracted enormous publicity. Nixon insisted on campaigning until just a few hours before the first debate started. He had not completely recovered from his hospital stay and looked pale, sickly, underweight, and tired. He also refused makeup for the first debate, and as a result his beard stubble showed prominently on black-and-white TV screens. (This was in the days before color television.) Nixon's mother called him immediately following the debate to ask if he was sick. Kennedy, by contrast, appeared tanned, confident, and relaxed during the debate. About 70 million people watched the first debate.
After the first debate, polls showed Kennedy moving into a slight lead over Nixon. For the remaining three debates Nixon wore television makeup, and appeared better prepared. But the remaining three debates had about 20 million fewer viewers than the first one. For the third debate split screen technology was used. Nixon was in Los Angeles while Kennedy was in New York. The men appear to be in the same room, thanks to identical sets.
Kennedy faced reluctance on the part of Protestant voters because of his Roman Catholic religion. Some Protestants, especially Southern Baptists and Lutherans, feared that having a Catholic in the White House would give undue influence to the Pope in the nation's affairs. To confront the religious issue, Kennedy made a speech before the nation's newspaper editors in which he criticized the prominence they gave to the religious issue over other topics such as foreign policy. On September 12, Kennedy told the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, "I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president who also happens to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my Church on public matters – and the Church does not speak for me." Kennedy also asked if one-quarter of Americans were relegated to second-class citizenship just because they were Roman Catholic.
When Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the civil-rights leader, was arrested in Georgia while leading a civil rights march, Nixon refused to become involved in the incident, but Kennedy placed calls to local political authorities to get King released from jail. He also called King's father and wife. As a result, King's father endorsed Kennedy, and he received favorable publicity in the African-American community.
Kennedy also took advantage of increased Cold War tension by telling voters that there was a "missile gap" between the United States and Soviet Union. He argued that under the Republicans the Soviets had developed a major advantage in the numbers of nuclear missiles. In an October 18 speech he said that several senior US military officers had long criticized the Eisenhower Administration's defense spending policies.
As the campaign moved into the final two weeks, the polls predicted a Kennedy victory. President Eisenhower made a vigorous campaign tour for Nixon over the last 10 days before the election. Eisenhower's support gave Nixon a badly needed boost. Nixon began to gain momentum and by election day the polls indicated a virtual tie.
On election night, November 8, 1960, Nixon watched the election returns from his suite at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, while Kennedy watched the returns at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. As the early returns poured in from large Northeastern and Midwestern cities such as Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago, Kennedy opened a large lead in the popular and electoral vote. However, as later returns came in from rural and suburban areas in the Midwest, the Rocky Mountain states, and the Pacific Coast states, Nixon began to close the gap, but his momentum was not sufficient to do so. Before midnight, The New York Times had gone to press with the headline "Kennedy Elected President".
Nixon made a speech at about 3 am, and hinted that Kennedy might have won the election, but it was not until the afternoon of Wednesday, November 9, that Nixon finally conceded the election, and Kennedy claimed victory. In the national popular vote, Kennedy beat Nixon by less than two tenths of one percentage point (0.17%), the closest popular vote margin of the 20th century. In the Electoral College, Kennedy's victory was larger, as he took 303 electoral votes to Nixon's 219 (269 were needed to win). Fifteen southern electors, eight from Mississippi, six from Alabama, and one from Oklahoma, refused to vote for either Kennedy or Nixon. Instead, they cast their votes for Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, a conservative Democrat, even though Byrd had not been a candidate for president. Kennedy carried 12 states by three percentage points or less, while Nixon won six states by similarly narrow margins. Kennedy carried all but three states in the populous Northeast, and he also carried the large states of Michigan, Illinois, and Missouri in the Midwest. With Lyndon Johnson's help, he also carried most of the South, including the large states of North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas. Nixon carried all but three of the Western states (including California), and he ran strong in the farm belt states, where his biggest victory was in Ohio.
In his victory speech, Kennedy said, "To all Americans, I say that the next four years are going to be difficult and challenging years for us all that a supreme national effort will be needed to move this country safely through the 1960s. I ask your help and I can assure you that every degree of my spirit that I possess will be devoted to the long range interest of the United States and to the cause of freedom around the world."
Some have claimed that Kennedy benefited from vote fraud, especially in Texas, where Kennedy's running mate Lyndon B. Johnson was senator, and Illinois, home of Mayor Richard Daley's powerful Chicago political machine. If Nixon had carried these two states, he would have earned 270 electoral votes, one more than the 269 needed to win. Republicans tried and failed to overturn the results in both Illinois and Texas. Nixon's campaign staff urged him to pursue recounts and challenge the validity of Kennedy's victory in several states, especially in Illinois, Missouri and New Jersey, but Nixon gave a speech three days after the election stating that he would not contest the election.