United States presidential election in New York, 1960

United States presidential election in New York, 1960

November 8, 1960

Nominee John F. Kennedy Richard Nixon Party Democratic Republican Home state Massachusetts California Running mate Lyndon B. Johnson Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. Electoral vote 45 0 Popular vote 3,830,085 3,446,419 Percentage 52.53% 47.27%

County Results   Kennedy—60-70%   Kennedy—50-60%   Nixon—50-60%   Nixon—60-70%   Nixon—70-80%

Jack Paar interviewing John F. Kennedy on New York City's The Tonight Show, 1959.

Elections in New York State
Federal government Presidential elections 1792 1796 1800 1804 1808 1812 1816 1820 1824 1828 1832 1836 1840 1844 1848 1852 1856 1860 1864 1868 1872 1876 1880 1884 1888 1892 1896 1900 1904 1908 1912 1916 1920 1924 1928 1932 1936 1940 1944 1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 Presidential primaries Democratic 2004 2008 Republican 2004 2008 2012 United States Senate elections 1789 1791 1795 1797 1801 1803 1807 1809 1813 1815 1819-20 1821 1825-26 1827 1831 1833 1837 1839-40 1843 1845 1849 1851 1855 1857 1861 1863 1867 1869 1873 1875 1879 1881 1885 1887 1891 1893 1897 1899 1903 1905 1909 1911 1964 1980 1986 1988 1992 1994 1998 2000 2004 2006 2010 2012 House of Representatives elections 1789 1790 1793 1794 1796 1796 1798 1800 1802 1804 1806 1808 1810 1812 1814 1816 1818 1821 1822 1824 1826 1854 2002 2004 2006 13th 20th 29th 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 Special elections to the United States Congress 20th district, 2009 23rd district, 2009 Senate, 2010 29th district, 2010 26th district, 2011 9th district, 2011 11th district, 2015 List of House special elections
State government New York gubernatorial elections 1777 1780 1783 1786 1789 1792 1795 1798 1801 1804 1807 1810 1813 1816 1817 1820 1822 1824 1826 1828 1830 1832 1834 1836 1838 1840 1842 1844 1846 1848 1850 1852 1854 1856 1858 1860 1862 1864 1866 1868 1870 1872 1874 1876 1879 1882 1885 1888 1891 1894 1896 1898 1900 1902 1904 1906 1908 1910 1912 1914 1916 1918 1920 1922 1924 1926 1928 1930 1932 1934 1936 1938 1942 1946 1950 1954 1958 1962 1966 1970 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 Attorney General elections 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 State Comptroller elections 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 State Assembly elections 99th district, 2006 State elections by year 1811 1844 1846 1847-J 1847 1848 1849 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869 1870 1870–J 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1900 1902 1903 1904 1906 1907 1908 1910 1912 1913 1914 1916 1917 1918 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1926 1927 1928 1930 1932 1933 1934 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1942 1943 1944 1946 1949 1950 1952 1953 1954 1956 1958 1959 1960 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1972 1973 1974 2002 2006 2008 2009 2010 2012
New York City Characteristics of NYC mayoral elections Mayoral elections 1917 1953 1957 1961 1965 1969 1973 1977 1981 1985 1989 1993 1997 2001 2005 2009 2013 2017 Public Advocate elections 2009 2013 Comptroller elections 2009 2013 Borough president elections 2013 The Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan Queens Staten Island
Buffalo Mayoral elections 1981 1985 1989 1993 1997 2001 2005 2009 2013
Syracuse Mayoral elections 2009

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. New York voters chose forty five electors to the Electoral College, which selected the President and Vice President.

New York was won by Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who was running against incumbent Republican Vice President Richard Nixon. Kennedy was running with Texas Senator, and strongest opponent in the 1960 Democratic Primaries, Lyndon B. Johnson for Vice President, and Nixon ran with internationally popular United States Ambassador to the United Nations Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr..

Kennedy won New York with 52.53% of the vote to Nixon's 47.27%, a victory margin of 5.26%.

New York weighed in for this election as 5% more Democratic than the national average.

The presidential election of 1960 was a very partisan election for New York, with 99.8% of the electorate voting for either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.^[1] In typical form for the time, the highly populated centers of New York City, Buffalo, and Albany, voted primarily Democratic, while the smaller counties in New York turned out for Nixon as the Republican candidate.

Kennedy won the election in New York by a solid 5 point margin, representing a dramatic shift toward the Democratic Party in the state: just four years earlier, Dwight Eisenhower had carried New York State for the Republicans with over 60% of the vote. The results of this election in New York are typical of the nationwide trend of the urbanization of the Democratic Party, and Kennedy's dominance in heavily populated New York City was a vital component to his victory in the state. Kennedy took 62.62% of the overall vote in New York City, to Nixon's 37.04%, and carried four out of five boroughs. Kennedy's victory in Queens, in the midst of a virtual tie nationwide, marked a dramatic turning point for the heavily populated borough's political leanings. Prior to 1960, Queens had been a Republican borough, only voting Democratic in massive nationwide Democratic landslides; it had not previously gone Democratic since the landslide re-election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1936. Beginning in 1960, Queens became a reliably Democratic borough, and since then has gone Republican only once, in the 1972 Republican landslide.

Nixon for his part ran on a platform of continuing the "peace and prosperity" felt throughout the United States under President Eisenhower, which gained him popularity in the developing regions of the Mid-West and Pacific States, while Kennedy attained his popularity in urban regions, in-part, due to his progressive stand on international politics.^[2] This included taking a stronger stance with the Soviet Union, which was a very important issue to many city-dwellers, fearing annihilation during the height of the post-nuclear age.

The electors of New York were vital to Kennedy's overall victory, as he defeated Nixon 303-219 in the United States Electoral College. Had Nixon carried New York, then all other things being equal he would have won pluralities both the popular and electoral vote. However, the Republican nominee would have still finished two votes short of an overall majority in the Electoral College, as he would have had a total of 265 of the 267 pledged electors needed to win compared to 258 for Kennedy. The fourteen unpledged electors of Mississippi and Alabama would have held the balance of power in the Electoral College (unable to influence the overall result, these electors opted to cast their votes in favor of Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd).

Results

Results by county

See also

• African American Civil Rights
• Conservative Coalition
• Cuban Missile Crisis
• Presidency of John F. Kennedy
• The Cold War

References

State Results of the 1960 U.S. presidential election
Candidates	John F. Kennedy Richard Nixon Full list
General articles	Election timeline Democratic primaries Republican primaries Republican Convention Democratic Convention Debates
Local results	Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming
Other 1960 elections	House Senate Gubernatorial