John F. Kennedy Wins a Narrow Presidential Election
On November 8, 1960, Democrat John F. Kennedy defeated Republican Richard Nixon in one of the closest American presidential elections of the twentieth century. He won by about 112,000 popular votes.
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The Candidates
Both major parties nominated men from the generation that had served in the Second World War. John F. Kennedy, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, was 43 years old. Richard M. Nixon, the Republican nominee, was the sitting Vice President under Dwight D. Eisenhower and was 47. Kennedy chose the Senate Majority Leader, Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, as his running mate, and Nixon chose Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the United States ambassador to the United Nations. Eisenhower, limited by the Constitution to two terms, did not run.
The Campaign
Kennedy's Roman Catholic faith was an issue in the campaign, since no Catholic had been elected president before. In September 1960 he spoke on the matter to a meeting of Protestant ministers in Houston and said that he supported the separation of church and state. The two candidates took part in four televised debates, the first of which was held in Chicago on September 26 and was seen by tens of millions of viewers. Polls taken at the time showed the race to be very close, and it stayed so until Election Day.
The Result
Kennedy received about 34.2 million votes and Nixon about 34.1 million, a difference of roughly 112,000 votes out of 68.8 million cast, or about 0.17 percent. In the Electoral College Kennedy won 303 votes and Nixon 219. Fifteen electors from Mississippi, Alabama and Oklahoma voted for Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, who was not a candidate. Illinois and Texas, which Kennedy won by small margins, were among the states where the vote was closest. Nixon did not contest the result, and conceded the next day.
After the Election
Kennedy was inaugurated on January 20, 1961, at 43 years of age. He was the first Roman Catholic to be elected president, and the youngest person to have been elected to the office, although Theodore Roosevelt, who took office at 42 after the death of President McKinley, was younger when he assumed it. Nixon returned to California and ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1962, then was elected president in 1968. Kennedy served until his assassination in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
Turnout and Recounts
About 64 percent of eligible voters took part, which was a high turnout for the period. It was the first presidential election in which all fifty states took part, since Alaska and Hawaii had joined the Union in 1959. In Hawaii the first count gave the state to Nixon by 141 votes, and a recount later showed Kennedy ahead by 115 votes, so Hawaii's three electoral votes went to Kennedy. Republicans also challenged results in several other states, but none of the challenges changed the outcome.
Sources
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