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| Elections in Mississippi |
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The 1964 United States presidential election in Mississippi was held on November 3, 1964, as part of the 1964 United States presidential election, which was held on that day throughout all fifty states and the District of Columbia. Voters chose seven electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
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Less than 10% of Mississippi's black population were registered voters. [1] Governor Paul B. Johnson Jr. told Mississippians to disobey the Civil Rights Act of 1964. [2] [3] Ultimately, Goldwater won Mississippi with a 74.28 point margin of victory over Johnson, making Mississippi 97% more Republican than the nation and Goldwater the first Republican to win the state since Reconstruction, even outperforming Johnson's 71% margin of victory in the District of Columbia. While Goldwater would suffer a landslide defeat to Johnson in both the national popular vote and Electoral College, his performance in Mississippi was the largest presidential vote share of any Republican presidential nominee ever in any state. [4] Goldwater's victory, alongside Johnson's victory in Rhode Island marked the last time a Presidential nominee won over 80% of the vote in a state.
Over ninety percent of Mississippi's electorate viewed President Johnson as having done a bad job and 96.4 percent opposed the Civil Rights Act, compared to only 54 percent in the antebellum slave states and Oklahoma. [5] Additionally, 87 percent of Mississippi voters, vis-à-vis 48 percent in the South as a whole, believed that President Johnson was failing at countering domestic Communism. [5] This reflected the widespread belief among Mississippi whites that civil rights activists were funded by communists. [6] [7]
