GovernorRoss Barnett, a segregationist, was faced with a severe dilemma upon becoming governor at the beginning of the year owing to the rigid opposition of Mississippi’s limited and almost exclusively White electorate[1] to the active Civil Rights Movement. Pressured by the "Citizens' Council" who wished to unite the South behind a White-supremacist Democratic candidate,[2] Governor Barnett repeated James P. Coleman’s strategy from 1956 and nominated two sets of Democratic Party electors for the presidential ballot.[3] The first slate was pledged to Kennedy, while the other was not pledged to any candidate. The aim of placing unpledged electors on the ballot was to gain leverage from either major party in a close election,[3] with the possibility of the House of Representatives electing a candidate more favourable to opponents of Brown v. Board of Education than either national major party nominee.[4]
Because the civil rights movement’s supporters regarded Kennedy’s record as poor on this issue, Senators John C. Stennis and James Eastland supported his candidacy, although state-level politicians were not at all supportive.[5] The state’s media saw a vigorous debate between the loyalist and unpledged Democrats in the week before the election.[6] Outside heavily French-settledHancock County, which has greater cultural ties with Louisiana than with most of the rest of Mississippi, Kennedy’s Catholic faith was also considered suspect.[7]
In the coastal counties, Kennedy improved considerably upon what Adlai Stevenson II achieved in 1956, but except for those counties around the cities of Natchez and Vicksburg, Kennedy otherwise showed a major decline from the Democratic result in 1956.[7] Kennedy held up best in the poor White upcountry counties that had historically been much more anti-Catholic than the Black Belt,[16] suggesting that voters throughout the state had become more suspicious of the Democrats’ civil rights policies. Since the Republican percentage of the vote essentially failed to change – Nixon lost Hancock to Kennedy and Adams and Warren to the unpledged slate but picked up Tunica and Lowndes Counties – the unpledged slate took almost all of Kennedy’s lost votes and thus shaded him for the state overall.
Despite Kennedy’s statewide defeat being only the second for a national Democrat in Mississippi since Reconstruction, this remains the last election when the coastal, French-influenced counties of Harrison and Jackson have voted for a Democratic presidential nominee.[17] The following landlocked counties have also never voted Democratic since: Choctaw, Jones and Smith.[17]Warren County would not vote Democratic again until Barack Obama won it in 2012.[18]
Frank K. Hughes David E. Guyton Will M. Whittington Frank E. Shanahan Jr. Martin V. B. Miller Edward H. Stevens Curtis H. Mullen Lovie Gore
John M. Kaye Ralph O. White J. H. Snyder J. J. Newman George W. Shaw C. E. Tolar Noel Womack Jr. J. B. Snyder
Notes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 In this county where the unpledged slate did finish third behind both Kennedy and Nixon, margin given is Kennedy vote minus Nixon vote and percentage margin Kennedy percentage minus Nixon percentage.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 In this county where Kennedy ran third behind both Nixon and the unpledged slate, margin given is Nixon vote minus unpledged vote and percentage margin Nixon percentage minus unpledged percentage.
References
↑ See Bullock, Charles S.; Gaddie, Ronald Keith. The Triumph of Voting Rights in the South. pp.31–33. ISBN0806185309.
↑ McMillen, Neil R. The Citizens' Council: Organized Resistance to the Second Reconstruction, 1954-64. p.333. ISBN0252064410.
1 2 Crespino, Joseph. In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution. pp.35–36. ISBN0691122091.
↑ Hills, Charles M. (October 11, 1960). "Barnett's Colonels Hear Elector Plan". Clarion-Ledger. Jackson, Mississippi. pp.1, 6.
↑ Bolton, Charles C. William F. Winter and the New Mississippi: A Biography. p.113. ISBN1617037877.
↑ "Loyalist, Unpledged Slug Away on Television". Enterprise-Journal. McComb, Mississippi. November 3, 1960. p.7.
1 2 Menendez, Albert J. The Religious Factor in the 1960 Presidential Election: An Analysis of the Kennedy Victory over Anti-Catholic Prejudice. pp.132–133. ISBN0786484934.
↑ "Poll of Editors Predicts Victory for Nixon-Lodge: Republican Ticket Seen Winning in 28 States and Democrats in 19". The Daily Item. November 4, 1960. p.3.
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