Richard Nixon 1960 presidential campaign

Last updated
Richard Nixon for President 1960
Nixon Lodge 1960 campaign logo.svg
Campaign 1960 Republican primaries
1960 U.S. presidential election
Candidate Richard Nixon
36th Vice President of the United States
(1953–1961)
Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
(1953–1960)
Affiliation Republican Party
StatusAnnounced: January 9, 1960
Official nominee: July 28, 1960
Lost election: November 8, 1960
SloganExperience Counts
Peace, Experience, Prosperity
Nixon-Lodge: They Understand What Peace Demands
America Needs Nixon-Lodge: Side by Side Our Strongest Team
Theme songClick with Dick
Buckle Down with Nixon [1]

The 1960 presidential campaign of Richard Nixon, the 36th vice president of the United States, under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, began when he announced he was running for the Republican Party's nomination in the 1960 U.S. presidential election on January 9, 1960. He won the Republican primaries with little opposition and chose as his running mate Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. They faced Democrats John F. Kennedy and running mate Lyndon B. Johnson in the general election. The main issues of the election were the civil rights movement, the Cold War, and Kennedy's Catholic faith. Both candidates were against communism, and were in favor of civil rights enough to win Black voters but not enough to lose white southerners.

Contents

Kennedy won the general election by a slim margin, and Nixon was urged to contest the election results due to irregularities in Illinois and Texas; he declined to do so. Despite having 15 unpledged and faithless electors vote for Harry Byrd in the Electoral College, Kennedy was certified as President. Had Nixon been elected, he would have been the first incumbent vice president since Martin Van Buren to be elected. In 1968, Nixon would go on to ran for president again in a successful campaign and ultimately elected as the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1974.

Campaign

Richard Nixon was the Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961, serving alongside Dwight D. Eisenhower. Prior to this, he was a U.S. Representative from 1947 to 1951 and a Senator from 1951 to 1953. [2]

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 1953 to 1961. Before this, he was a Senator from Massachusetts. [3]

Republican primaries

In late 1959, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller suggested that he would run for the Republican presidential nomination, but withdrew in December after "almost total opposition by Republican Party leaders". Nixon then joined the primaries, and faced no serious opposition. In July 1960, at the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Nixon accepted the party's nomination and nominated Lodge to be his running mate. [3]

General election

Nixon's campaign manager was Robert Finch. [4] Nixon had the advantage of Eisenhower being a popular president. He promised to continue Eisenhower's work and "improve upon them in such areas as welfare programs, foreign aid, and defense." [3] His main opponents in the general election were Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy and Texas Governor Lyndon B. Johnson, Democrats. [5] [6] Nixon's campaigning was more intense than Kennedy, in that he traveled to more locations at a faster pace and for a longer time. He became the first presidential candidate to visit every state during the election season. [3] His campaign had two official songs: "Click with Dick" and "Buckle Down with Nixon". [7]

An ad by the Nixon campaign, describing his foreign policy

The election happened "amid a rapidly shifting political terrain". White southerners had previously solidly stayed Democrat, but was shifting to the Republican Party as the Democrats promoted civil rights in the South; for this same reason, historically-Republican New England was shifting to the Democrats. As a result of these changes, Politico writes, "both Kennedy and Nixon were trying to simultaneously appeal to urban Black people and white southerners, an exercise in political tightrope-walking." [8]

Both Kennedy and Nixon were against communists and the Soviet Union, though Nixon was arguably more hawkish towards them. [8] He said that in a hypothetical war with the Soviet Union, nuclear weapons "would inevitably be employed". [9] Nixon, like Kennedy, supported Zionism in Israel. [10] Another major issue was Kennedy's Catholic faith, at a time of widespread anti-Catholic sentiment. [8] Nixon gave his opinion on the matter while speaking to a group of Protestant ministers in Houston on September 12: [3]

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish—where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source—where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials—and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

Full broadcast of the September 26, 1960 debate

There were four televised debates between Nixon and Kennedy. [2] The first debate on September 26, which received around 70 million viewers, [8] is the subject of disagreement by writers over how detrimental it was to Nixon. Nixon had a "sweaty, haggard appearance" because of the studio's hot stage lights, and a knee infection caused by septic arthritis, for which he got treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in August 1960. [11] [12] Journalist Theodore H. White writes: "Until the cameras opened on the senator and the vice-president, Kennedy had been the boy under assault and attack by the vice-president as immature, young, inexperienced. Now, obviously, in flesh and behavior, he was the vice-president’s equal." In 2024, The Conversation wrote that there was no unanimity regarding Nixon's appearance in the news media at the time: columnist Walter Liptmann wrote that the cameras "made him look sick, which he is not, and they made him look older and more worn than he is", whereas The Washington Post wrote: "Of the two performances Mr. Nixon’s was probably the smoother. He is an accomplished debater with a professional polish, and he managed to convey a slightly patronizing air of a master instructing a pupil.” The Conversation writes that was arguably more detrimental was Nixon's seeming "defensive and deferential" attitudes towards topics Kennedy brought up. [12]

In October, columnist Drew Pearson accused Nixon of having a conflict of interest as Vice President; on December 10, 1956, Nixon's mother, Hannah Nixon, allegedly received a $205,000 loan from the Hughes Tool Company, owned by Howard Hughes. Afterwards, Pearson wrote, Hughes' "problems with various government agencies had improved". Robert Finch responded to the allegation by saying it was "an obvious political smear in the last two weeks of the campaign", and that the loan actually came from Frank J. Waters, a California attorney who was Nixon's friend. Nixon had no comment. [13]

Endorsements

Black former baseball player Jackie Robinson, a major celebrity, endorsed Nixon after meeting with both candidates, which went against common sentiment among Black voters. He supported Hubert Humphrey in the Democratic primaries, but wrote that he also liked Nixon: [14] [3]

Though the Democratic nominee is still undetermined at this point, it would be folly to underestimate the impression Nixon’s generally good civil rights record has made among Negroes. I’ve been following Nixon’s career for some time now, and I don’t mind admitting that generally I’ve liked what I’ve seen and heard.

—  Jackie Robinson, Robinson's column in a Black-demographic newspaper, the Chicago Defender, in 1960

When Robinson met with Nixon, he disliked when Nixon stopped their conversation to take a phone call in which he seemed to state he was planning to get Robinson to dissociate him (Nixon) from Eisenhower, as Black people generally did not trust Eisenhower. Robinson viewed this as a "cheap trick". However, he found his meeting with Kennedy afterwards to be worse; he wrote that Kennedy "admitted a lack of any depth of understanding about black people". Robinson then endorsed Nixon, receiving animosity from some Black community leaders like Malcolm X. [14]

Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Sr. initially endorsed Nixon for president, as he did not support Kennedy for religious reasons. [15] On October 19, 1960, however, Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in Atlanta for protesting against a segregated department store. A judge ordered that King Jr. be jailed for three months for violating probation for a minor traffic offense. [8] Jackie Robinson contacted Nixon, asking him to help King Jr.; Nixon declined, saying it would be "grandstanding". [14] Fearing he would not survive, King Jr.'s wife Coretta Scott King contacted the Kennedy campaign to see if they could help. Robert Kennedy then was able to get King out of prison on bail, and King Sr. said he had a "suitcase full of votes" for Kennedy. [16] Politico writes that this could have decided the election. [8]

Results

Electoral college results of the general election, November 8, 1960 ElectoralCollege1960.svg
Electoral college results of the general election, November 8, 1960

68 million people voted in the general election. [8] The news media projected on November 8 that Kennedy had won. [5] In the popular vote, Nixon lost to Kennedy by approximately 118,000 votes, or 0.2 percentage points, which was the closest race a U.S. presidential election had been since 1884. [17] In the Electoral College, Kennedy would receive 303 votes and Nixon 219. [5] 15 southern unpledged and faithless electors cast votes for Senator Harry Byrd from Virginia as an attempt to preserve southern segregation. [8]

Nixon was urged to contest the election results due to accusations of voter fraud that were popularized by Nixon's friend, journalist Earl Mazo. Republican operatives, lead by Finch, Thurston B. Morton, and Leonard W. Hall, announced investigations into 11 states' results for irregularities: Delaware, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. They found some irregularities in Illinois and Texas which may have meant Kennedy did not legally win those states. [2] [5] [6] Kennedy won by 8,000 to 9,000 votes in Illinois, and in Texas by 46,000 votes. [8] [5] Morton claimed the Republican Party received, as Politico wrote, "35,000 letters and telegrams with anecdotal accounts of fraud". [6] In Illinois, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley was accused of using his "political machine" to influence the vote towards Kennedy, and in Texas, Lyndon B. Johnson was accused of doing the same thing. [5] (Daley had a history of ballot manipulation, and Johnson was previously accused of cheating in his 1948 Senate run.) [6] [18] The Democratic National Committee chairman, Henry L. Jackson, called the investigation effort "a fishing expedition on a grand scale", and former U.S. President Harry Truman called the effort "a lot of hooey" from "just a bunch of poor losers". [6]

Nixon declined to contest the results. He publicly said: [2]

I could think of no worse example for nations abroad, who for the first time were trying to put free electoral procedures into effect, than that of the United States wrangling over the results of our presidential election, and even suggesting that the presidency itself could be stolen by thievery at the ballot box.

On November 9, Nixon conceded to Kennedy. [5] In December, as the Electoral College vote was underway, Hawaii's three electors voted for Kennedy despite Nixon winning the state by 140 popular votes. [19] Later that month, Nixon held a Christmas party at his home, in which he said to his guests, "We won, but they stole it from us". [18] Nixon later claimed in his biography, Six Crises , that voter fraud had occurred in Illinois and Texas. [5] [6] Historian Edmund Kallina, however, writes that the discrepancies in the Chicago vote count were not large enough to give the state to Nixon if they had not occurred. [5]

Aftermath

Nixon temporarily retired to private life after the election. In 1962, he unsuccessfully ran for Governor of California, losing to the Democrat Pat Brown. In 1968, Nixon successfully ran for president again and was ultimately elected as the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1974. [2]

In 2020, Republican candidate then-incumbent president Donald Trump lost the presidential election and attempted to overturn the election results. His allies argued that their claims of voter fraud had historical precedent in how Hawaii's electors voted for Kennedy instead of Nixon. [19] (No evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election has been found.) [20]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1956 United States presidential election</span>

Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 6, 1956. Incumbent Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his running mate, incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon, were reelected, defeating for a second time Democrat Adlai Stevenson II, former Illinois governor. This election was the sixth and most recent rematch in American presidential history. It was the second time in which the winner was the same both times, the first being William McKinley's victories over William Jennings Bryan in 1896 and 1900. This was the last election before term limits established by the Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which first applied to Eisenhower, became effective.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1960 United States presidential election</span>

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. This made it the only presidential election in which the threshold for victory was 269 electoral votes. 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1964 United States presidential election</span>

Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 3, 1964. Incumbent Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Republican Senator Barry Goldwater in a landslide victory. Johnson was the fourth and most recent vice president to succeed the presidency following the death of his predecessor and win a full term in his own right. Johnson won the largest share of the popular vote for the Democratic Party in history at 61.1%. As of 2024, this remains the highest popular vote percentage of any candidate since the advent of widespread popular elections in 1824.

In United States presidential elections, an unpledged elector is a person nominated to stand as an elector but who has not pledged to support any particular presidential or vice presidential candidate, and is free to vote for any candidate when elected a member of the Electoral College. Presidential elections are indirect, with voters in each state choosing electors on Election Day in November, and these electors choosing the president and vice president of the United States in December. Electors in practice have since the 19th century almost always agreed in advance to vote for a particular candidate — that is, they are said to have been pledged to that candidate. In several elections in the 20th century, however, competitive campaigns were mounted by candidates who made no pledge to any presidential nominee before the election. These anomalies largely arose from fissures within the Democratic Party over the issues of civil rights and segregation. No serious general election campaign has been mounted to elect unpledged electors in any state since 1964.

In United States politics, balancing the ticket is a practice where a political candidate chooses a running mate, usually from the same party, with the goal of bringing more widespread appeal to the campaign. The term is most prominently used to describe the selection of the U.S. vice presidential nominee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1962 California gubernatorial election</span>

The 1962 California gubernatorial election was held on November 6, 1962. The Democratic incumbent, Pat Brown, ran for re-election against former U.S. vice president and 1960 Republican presidential nominee Richard Nixon. In his concession speech the following morning, Nixon accused the media of favoring his opponent Brown, stating that it was his "last press conference" and "You won't have Nixon to kick around any more." Six years later, Nixon was elected President of the United States, and exactly ten years after this press conference he was re-elected in a landslide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electoral history of Richard Nixon</span> List of political elections featuring Richard Nixon as a candidate

Richard Nixon served as the 37th president of the United States from 1969 to 1974. He previously served as the 36th vice president of the United States from 1953 to 1961, and as a United States senator from 1950 to 1953 and United States representative from 1947 to 1950.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1972 United States presidential election in Massachusetts</span>

The 1972 United States presidential election in Massachusetts took place on November 7, 1972, as part of the 1972 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all 50 states and D.C. Voters chose 14 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1960 United States presidential election in Virginia</span>

The 1960 United States presidential election in Virginia took place on November 8, 1960. Voters chose 12 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1960 United States presidential election in New York</span>

The 1960 United States presidential election in New York took place on November 8, 1960. All 50 states were part of the 1960 United States presidential election. Voters chose 45 electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1960 United States presidential election in Massachusetts</span>

The 1960 United States presidential election in Massachusetts took place on November 8, 1960, as part of the 1960 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all 50 states. Voters chose 16 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1960 United States presidential election in Vermont</span>

The 1960 United States presidential election in Vermont took place on November 8, 1960, as part of the 1960 United States presidential election which was held throughout all 50 states. Voters chose three representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1960 United States presidential election in Hawaii</span>

The 1960 presidential election in Hawaii was held on November 8, 1960, as part of the 1960 United States presidential election. This was the first presidential election in which Hawaii participated; the state had been admitted to the Union just over a year earlier. The islands favored Senator John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, by a narrow margin of 115 votes, or 0.06%, after a court-ordered recount overturned an initial result favoring Vice President Richard Nixon, a Republican. The result was considered an upset, as Nixon had been thought likely to win the state's electoral votes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1960 United States presidential election in Wisconsin</span>

The 1960 United States presidential election in Wisconsin was held on November 8, 1960 as part of the 1960 United States presidential election. State voters chose 12 electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president. Politics in Wisconsin since the Populist movement had been dominated by the Republican Party. The Democratic Party became uncompetitive away from the Lake Michigan coast as the upper classes, along with the majority of workers who followed them, fled from William Jennings Bryan’s agrarian and free silver sympathies. Although the state did develop a strong Socialist Party to provide opposition to the GOP, Wisconsin developed the direct Republican primary in 1903 and this ultimately created competition between the “League” under Robert M. La Follette, and the conservative “Regular” faction. This ultimately would develop into the Wisconsin Progressive Party in the late 1930s, which was opposed to the conservative German Democrats and to the national Republican Party, and allied with Franklin D. Roosevelt at the federal level.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John F. Kennedy 1960 presidential campaign</span> American political campaign

The 1960 presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy, then junior United States senator from Massachusetts, was formally launched on January 2, 1960, as Senator Kennedy announced his intention to seek the Democratic Party nomination for the presidency of the United States in the 1960 presidential election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1960 United States presidential election in Mississippi</span>

The 1960 United States presidential election in Mississippi took place on November 8, 1960, as part of the 1960 United States presidential election. Voters chose eight representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president. This was the last election in which Mississippi had eight electoral votes: the Great Migration of Black Americans caused the state to lose congressional districts for the third time in four censuses before the next election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1960 United States presidential election in Tennessee</span>

The 1960 United States presidential election in Tennessee took place on November 8, 1960, as part of the 1960 United States presidential election. Tennessee voters chose 11 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1960 United States presidential election in Wyoming</span>

The 1960 United States presidential election in Wyoming took place on November 8, 1960, as part of the 1960 United States presidential election. State voters chose three representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1960 United States presidential election in Illinois</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1960 United States presidential election in North Carolina</span>

The 1960 United States presidential election in North Carolina took place on November 8, 1960, as part of the 1960 United States presidential election. North Carolina voters chose 14 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

References

  1. ↑ Green, Emma (2013-10-31). "The Forgotten Joy of 1960 Presidential Campaign Jingles". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2024-08-20.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Richard Nixon | Biography, Presidency, Watergate, Impeachment, Resignation, & Facts". www.britannica.com. 2024-08-18. Retrieved 2024-08-20.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "United States presidential election of 1960 | John F. Kennedy vs. Richard Nixon, Results, & Impact". www.britannica.com. 2024-07-29. Retrieved 2024-08-20.
  4. ↑ "Nixon Aide Accuses Columnist Of 'Smear' Over Story of Loan". The New York Times. 1960-10-27. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2024-08-20.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "The drama behind President Kennedy's 1960 election win". constitutioncenter.org. Retrieved 2024-08-20.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Greenberg, David (October 10, 2020). "The Time Nixon's Cronies Tried to Overturn a Presidential Election". Politico. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
  7. ↑ Green, Emma (2013-10-31). "The Forgotten Joy of 1960 Presidential Campaign Jingles". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2024-08-20.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Greenfield, Jeff (February 4, 2024). "How Kennedy Narrowly Defeated Nixon — and Why the Alternative History Would Have Been Devastating". Politico. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
  9. ↑ Baldwin, Hanson W. (1960-10-30). "Nixon Calls Atom Bombing 'Inevitable' in a Major War; NIXON OUTLINES VIEW ON DEFENSE". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2024-08-20.
  10. ↑ "Text of Nixon Message to Zionists Here". The New York Times. 1960-08-28. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2024-08-20.
  11. ↑ Dvorak, Petula (September 19, 2016). "Like Hillary Clinton, Nixon ignored his doctor's advice while running for president. It was a disaster". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
  12. 1 2 Campbell, W. Joseph (2024-06-26). "What people say today about the first televised presidential debate, between Nixon and JFK, doesn't match first reactions in 1960". The Conversation. Retrieved 2024-08-20.
  13. ↑ "Nixon Aide Accuses Columnist Of 'Smear' Over Story of Loan". The New York Times. 1960-10-27. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2024-08-20.
  14. 1 2 3 Frommer, Frederic J. (October 28, 2022). "Kennedy and Nixon Both Wooed Jackie Robinson. Guess Who Won". Politico. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
  15. ↑ Gibbs, Nancy (February 7, 2006). "The Presidents and Mrs. King". Time. Time. Retrieved October 20, 2024.
  16. ↑ Phillips, Kristine (February 9, 2017). "How Coretta Scott King and JFK joined forces -- and helped change the Democratic Party". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 20, 2024.
  17. ↑ Campbell, W. Joseph (2024-06-26). "What people say today about the first televised presidential debate, between Nixon and JFK, doesn't match first reactions in 1960". The Conversation. Retrieved 2024-08-20.
  18. 1 2 Shesol, Jeff (2022-01-18). "Did John F. Kennedy and the Democrats Steal the 1960 Election?". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2024-08-20.
  19. 1 2 Cheney, Kyle (February 7, 2022). "See the 1960 Electoral College certificates that the false Trump electors say justify their gambit". Politico. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
  20. ↑ "Exhaustive fact check finds little evidence of voter fraud, but 2020's 'Big Lie' lives on". PBS News. 2021-12-17. Retrieved 2024-08-20.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.