Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 8, 1960. The Democratic ticket of Senator John F. Kennedy and his running mate, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, narrowly defeated the Republican ticket of incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon and his running mate, U.N. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. This was the first election in which 50 states participated, marking the first participation of Alaska and Hawaii, and the last in which the District of Columbia did not. It was also the first election in which an incumbent president—in this case, Dwight D. Eisenhower—was ineligible to run for a third term because of the term limits established by the 22nd Amendment.
Nixon faced little opposition in the Republican race to succeed popular incumbent Eisenhower. Kennedy, the junior senator from Massachusetts, established himself as the Democratic frontrunner with his strong performance in the 1960 Democratic primaries, including key victories in Wisconsin and West Virginia over Senator Hubert Humphrey. He defeated Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson on the first presidential ballot of the 1960 Democratic National Convention, and asked Johnson to serve as his running mate.
Both presidential nominees were relatively youthful, guaranteeing that America would elect its first president born in the 20th century. The 1960 presidential election was among the closest in American history, influenced by a number of factors: Kennedy benefited from the economic recession of 1957–1958, which hurt the standing of the incumbent Republican Party, and he had the advantage of 17 million more registered Democrats than Republicans. Furthermore, the new votes that Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, gained among Catholics almost neutralized the new votes Nixon gained among Protestants. Nixon's advantages came from Eisenhower's popularity, and the economic prosperity of the past eight years. Kennedy strategically focused on campaigning in populous swing states, while Nixon exhausted time and resources campaigning in all fifty states. Kennedy emphasized his youth, while Nixon focused heavily on his experience. Kennedy relied on Johnson to hold the South, and used television effectively.
Kennedy won 303 to 219 in the Electoral College, and he won the reported national popular vote by 112,827, a margin of 0.17 percent. Fourteen unpledged electors from Mississippi and Alabama cast their votes for Senator Harry F. Byrd, as did a faithless elector from Oklahoma. Kennedy's popular vote margin was the second-narrowest in presidential history, only surpassed by the 0.11% margin of the election of 1880, and the smallest ever for a Democrat (notwithstanding the presidential elections in which the winners lost the popular vote). Kennedy became the youngest person ever elected to the U.S. presidency, at 43 years and 5 months.
Nominations
Democratic Party
Democratic candidates
The major candidates for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination were United States Senator John F. Kennedy from Massachusetts, Governor Pat Brown of California, Senator Stuart Symington from Missouri, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson from Texas, former nominee Adlai Stevenson, Senator Wayne Morse from Oregon, and Senator Hubert Humphrey from Minnesota. Several other candidates sought support in their home state or region as "favorite son" candidates, without any realistic chance of winning the nomination. Symington, Stevenson, and Johnson all declined to campaign in the presidential primaries. While this reduced their potential delegate count going into the Democratic National Convention, each of these three candidates hoped that the other leading contenders would stumble in the primaries, thus causing the convention's delegates to choose him as a "compromise" candidate acceptable to all factions of the party.
Kennedy was initially dogged by suggestions from some Democratic Party elders (such as former United States President Harry S. Truman, who was supporting Symington) that he was too youthful and inexperienced to be president; these critics suggested that he should agree to be the running mate for another Democrat. Given Kennedy had been a candidate for Stevenson's running mate in 1956 with at least one Democrat, Jacob Arvey directly saying a Stevenson victory could have happened with Kennedy as the running mate it was clear those on the inside understood Kennedy's popularity to those around him, even if they thought his victory as the nomination was unlikely. Realizing that this was a strategy touted by his opponents to keep the public from taking him seriously, Kennedy stated frankly, "I'm not running for vice president; I'm running for president."
The next step was 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 combed the state, looking for votes, leading Humphrey to complain that he "felt like an independent merchant competing against a chain store." However, some political experts argued that Kennedy's margin of victory had come almost entirely from Catholic areas, and, thus, Humphrey decided to continue the contest in the heavily Protestant state of West Virginia. The first televised debate of 1960 was held in West Virginia. Kennedy outperformed Humphrey and, in the days following, Kennedy made substantial gains over Humphrey in the polls. Humphrey's campaign was low on funds, and could not compete for advertising and other "get-out-the-vote" drives with Kennedy's well-financed and well-organized campaign, which was not above using dirty tricks to win; prior to the Wisconsin primary, Catholic neighborhoods in Milwaukee were flooded with anti-Catholic pamphlets postmarked from Minnesota. It was assumed Humphrey's campaign had sent them, and it may have helped tilt voters in Wisconsin away from him. In the end, Kennedy defeated Humphrey with over 60% of the vote, and Humphrey ended his presidential campaign. West Virginia showed that Kennedy, a Catholic, could win in a heavily Protestant state. Although Kennedy had only competed in nine presidential primaries, Kennedy's rivals, Johnson and Symington, failed to campaign in any primaries. Even though Stevenson had twice been the Democratic Party's presidential candidate, and retained a loyal following of liberals, his two landslide defeats by Republican United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower led most party leaders and delegates to search for a "fresh face" who could win a national election. Following the primaries, Kennedy traveled around the nation, speaking to state delegations and their leaders. As the Democratic Convention opened, Kennedy was far in the lead, but was still seen as being just short of the delegate total he needed to win.
Democratic convention
The 1960 Democratic National Convention was held in Los Angeles, California. In the week before the convention opened, Kennedy received two new challengers, when Lyndon B. Johnson, the powerful Senate Majority Leader, and Adlai Stevenson, the party's nominee in 1952 and 1956, officially announced their candidacies. However, neither Johnson nor Stevenson was a match for the talented and highly efficient Kennedy campaign team led by Robert Kennedy. Johnson challenged Kennedy to a televised debate before a joint meeting of the Texas and Massachusetts delegations, which Kennedy accepted. Most observers believed that Kennedy won the debate, and Johnson was unable 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, and Stevenson—despite the energetic support of former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt—could not break their allegiance. Kennedy won the nomination on the first ballot.
Then, in a move that surprised many, Kennedy asked Johnson to be his running mate. He realized that he could not be elected without the support of traditional Southern Democrats, most of whom had backed Johnson. He 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. Robert F. Kennedy, who hated Johnson for his attacks on the Kennedy family, and who favored labor leader Walter Reuther, later said that his brother offered the position to Johnson as a courtesy and did not expect him to accept it. When he did accept, Robert Kennedy tried to change Johnson's mind, and failed.
Biographers Robert Caro and W. Marvin Watson offer a different perspective: they write that the Kennedy campaign was desperate to win what was forecast to be a very close race against Nixon and Lodge. Johnson was needed on the ticket to help carry votes from Texas and the Southern United States. Caro's research showed that on July 14, Kennedy started the process, while Johnson was still asleep. At 6:30 a.m., Kennedy asked his brother to prepare an estimate of upcoming electoral votes, "including Texas". Robert Kennedy called Pierre Salinger and Kenneth O'Donnell to assist him. Realizing the ramifications of counting Texas votes as their own, Salinger asked him whether he was considering a Kennedy–Johnson ticket, and Robert replied, "Yes". Between 9 and 10 am, John Kennedy called Pennsylvania governor David L. Lawrence, a Johnson backer, to request that Lawrence nominate Johnson for vice president if Johnson were to accept the role, and then went to Johnson's suite to discuss a mutual ticket at 10:15 am. John Kennedy then returned to his suite to announce the Kennedy–Johnson ticket to his closest supporters and Northern political bosses. He accepted the congratulations of Ohio Governor Michael DiSalle, Connecticut Governor Abraham A. Ribicoff, New York City mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr., and Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley. Lawrence said that "Johnson has the strength where you need it most"; he then left to begin writing the nomination speech. O'Donnell remembers being angry at what he considered a betrayal by John Kennedy, who had previously cast Johnson as anti-labor and anti-liberal. Afterward, Robert Kennedy visited with labor leaders who were extremely unhappy with the choice of Johnson, and, after seeing the depth of labor opposition to Johnson, he ran messages between the hotel suites of his brother and Johnson, apparently trying to undermine the proposed ticket without John Kennedy's authorization and to get Johnson to agree to be the Democratic Party chairman, rather than vice president. Johnson refused to accept a change in plans, unless it came directly from John Kennedy. Despite his brother's interference, John Kennedy was firm that Johnson was who he wanted as running mate, and met with staffers such as Larry O'Brien, his national campaign manager, to say Johnson was to be vice president. O'Brien recalled later that John Kennedy's words were wholly unexpected, but that, after a brief consideration of the electoral vote situation, he thought "it was a stroke of genius".
Republican Party
Republican candidates
With the ratification of the 22nd Amendment in 1951, President Dwight D. Eisenhower could not run for the office of president again; he was elected in 1952 and 1956.
In 1959, it looked as if Vice President Richard Nixon might face a serious challenge for the Republican nomination from New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, the leader of the Republican moderate-to-liberal wing. However, Rockefeller announced that he would not be a candidate for president, after a national tour revealed that the great majority of Republicans favored Nixon.
After Rockefeller's withdrawal, Nixon faced no significant opposition for the Republican nomination. At the 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Nixon was the overwhelming choice of the delegates, with conservative Senator Barry Goldwater from Arizona receiving 10 votes from conservative delegates. In earning the nomination, Nixon became the first sitting vice president to be nominated for president since John C. Breckinridge exactly a century prior. Nixon then chose former Massachusetts Senator and United Nations Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., as his vice presidential running mate. Nixon chose Lodge because his foreign-policy credentials fit into Nixon's strategy to campaign more on foreign policy than domestic policy, which he believed favored the Democrats. Nixon had previously sought Rockefeller as his running mate, but the governor had no ambitions to be vice president. However, he later served as Gerald Ford's vice president from 1974 to 1977.
General election
Campaign promises
The issue of the Cold War dominated the election, as tensions were high between the United States and the Soviet Union. During the campaign, Kennedy charged that, under Eisenhower and the Republicans, the nation had militarily and economically fallen behind the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Kennedy pledged, if elected, he would "get America moving again". While the Eisenhower administration had established NASA in 1958, Kennedy also claimed the Republican Party had ignored the need to catch up to the Soviet Union in the Space Race. He promised that the new Democratic administration would fully appreciate the importance of space accomplishments for the national security and international prestige of the United States. Nixon responded that, if elected, he would continue the "peace and prosperity" that Eisenhower had brought the nation in the 1950s. Nixon also argued, with the nation engaged in the Cold War, he was more qualified to be president because of his greater political experience and that Kennedy was "too young and inexperienced" to be trusted with the presidency. Conversely, Nixon and Kennedy were only removed by four years in age. In spite of attacks, the Kennedy campaign made Kennedy's youthfulness, and his promise to bring about change, an asset. Kennedy had a slogan, reading, "who's seasoned through and through/but not so dog-gone seasoned that he won't try something new." He was also endorsed by celebrities such as Frank Sinatra, Henry Fonda, and Harry Belafonte.