The 1960 United States presidential election in Illinois took place on November 8, 1960, as part of the 1960 United States presidential election. State voters chose 27 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
In the nation's second-closest race following Hawaii, Illinois was won by Senator John F. Kennedy (D–Massachusetts), running with Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, with 49.98% of the popular vote against incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon (R–California), running with former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., with 49.80% of the popular vote, a margin of victory of only 0.18%.
Primaries
Turnout
Turnout in the state-run primary elections (Democratic and Republican) was 16.43% with a total of 836,458 votes cast.
Turnout during the general election was 86.51%, with 4,757,409 votes cast. Both major parties held non-binding state-run preferential primaries on April 12.
Democratic
The 1960 Illinois Democratic presidential primary was held on April 12, 1960, in the U.S. state of Illinois as one of the Democratic Party's state primaries ahead of the 1960 presidential election.
The popular vote was a non-binding "beauty contest". Delegates were instead elected by direct votes by congressional district on delegate candidates.
All candidates were write-ins. Kennedy ran a write-in campaign, and no candidate actively ran against him in Illinois.
Not all of the vote-getters had been declared candidates. Johnson, Stevenson, and Symington had all sat out the primaries.
Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley, head of the Cook County Democratic Party, promised to deliver Kennedy the support of Cook County's delegates, so long as Kennedy won competitive primaries in other states.
Republican
The 1960 Illinois Republican presidential primary was held on April 12, 1960, in the U.S. state of Illinois as one of the Republican Party's state primaries ahead of the 1960 presidential election.
The preference vote was a "beauty contest". Delegates were instead selected by direct-vote in each congressional district on delegate candidates.
Nixon ran unopposed in the primary.
Results
Results by county
Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic
- Alexander
- Cook
- Christian
- Clinton
- Rock Island
Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican
Analysis
Alleged mafia intervention
Some journalists later argued that mobster Sam Giancana and his Chicago crime syndicate "played a role" in Kennedy's victory. Giancana's mistress Judith Exner and Frank Sinatra's daughter Tina Sinatra both stated that Giancana used his connections to persuade unions to support Kennedy. According to Exner, Giancana bragged to her that Kennedy would never have been elected without him. However, it is alleged that Giancana came to regret aiding Kennedy get elected due to the fact that attorney general Robert F. Kennedy made significant efforts to crack down on organized crime. The lawyer Robert J. McDonnell, later to become the son-in-law of Giancana, told journalist Seymour Hersh that at the request of judge William J. Tuohy he helped set up a meeting between Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Giancana. Sinatra's daughter Tina told Hersh a similar story, that through her father Kennedy set up a meeting with Giancana.
Frank Ragano, lawyer for Florida mob boss Santo Trafficante Jr., stated that Giancana complained to his client that "We broke our balls for him and gave him the election, and he gets his brother to hound us to death". In the book Double Cross by Chuck Giancana, the half-brother of Giancana claimed Giancana said “I help get Jack elected and, in return, he calls off the heat".
Alleged fraud
Some, including Republican legislators and journalists, believed that Kennedy benefited from vote fraud from Mayor Richard J. Daley's powerful Chicago political machine.
Daley's machine was known for "delivering whopping Democratic tallies by fair means and foul."
Republicans tried and failed to overturn the results at the time—as well as in ten other states. Nixon's campaign staff urged him to pursue recounts and challenge the validity of Kennedy's victory, but Nixon gave a speech three days after the election that he would not contest the election.
A myth arose that Daley held back much of the Chicago vote until the late morning hours of November 9. However, when the Republican Chicago Tribune went to press, 79% of Cook County precincts had reported, compared to just 62% of Illinois's precincts overall. Moreover, Nixon never led in Illinois, and Kennedy's lead merely shrank as election night went on. Earl Mazo, a reporter for the pro-Nixon New York Herald Tribune and his biographer, investigated the voting in Chicago and "claimed to have discovered sufficient evidence of vote fraud to prove that the state was stolen for Kennedy."
A special prosecutor assigned to the case brought charges against 650 people, who were acquitted by a judge who was considered a "Daley machine loyalist."
Three Chicago election workers were convicted of voter fraud in 1962 and served short terms in jail. Mazo, the Herald-Tribune reporter, later said that he "found names of the dead who had voted in Chicago, along with 56 people from one house." He found cases of Republican voter fraud in southern Illinois but said that the totals "did not match the Chicago fraud he found."
An academic study in 1985 later analyzed the ballots of two disputed precincts in Chicago which were subject to a recount. It found that while there was a pattern of miscounting votes to the advantage of Democratic candidates, Nixon suffered less than Republicans in other races, and the extrapolated error would have reduced his Illinois margin only from 8,858 votes, the final official total, to just under 8,000. It concluded there was insufficient evidence that he had been cheated out of winning Illinois.
Even if enough legitimate systemic fraud was discovered in Illinois to give Nixon the state, that alone would not have been enough to win him the presidency. Kennedy would've still been left with 276 electoral votes, seven more than what he needed to win the White House.
Recount
Ben Adamowski, a Republican who lost reelection as Cook County State's Attorney to Democratic nominee Daniel P. Ward, requested a recount of the state's attorney race. Republicans sought to use this recount, as they could not order a recount of the presidential results, to prove that fraud had been committed in the presidential election. Sidney Holzman, the chair of the Board of Election Commissioners, stated that only the three BEC members could handle the ballots and would only recount the ballots for the state's attorney election. Judge Thaddeus Adesko ruled that twenty-five teams of counters had to be used and that the other elections would be included in the recount.
The recount was finished on December 9, and showed that in six towns around Chicago, mistakes of ten votes or more in favor of Kennedy occurred in 3.1% of the precincts, those in favor of Nixon occurred in 2.6%, and those in favor of third-parties occurred in 4.8%. 11% of the precincts in Chicago had errors of ten votes or more in Kennedy's favor and 8.6% in Nixon's favor. Kennedy's vote was overcounted in 38% of Chicago's precincts while Nixon's vote was overcounted in 40%. Nixon's total was increased by 926 votes.
Republicans accused the election commission of manipulating the recount and Adamowski successfully sued for another recount in 1961, although only his election was recounted. The original recount increased his vote total by 9,073 while the second one increased his total by 12,694 per precinct.