LBJ ELECTED IN LANDSLIDE OVER GOLDWATER
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On November 3, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson was elected in a historic landslide over his Republican opponent Senator Barry M. Goldwater.
LBJ, who had assumed the presidency upon the death of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, won the Electoral College 486-52.
LBJ carried 44 states and the District of Columbia while Goldwater carried 6 states including his home state of Arizona.
The popular vote margin of 16 million votes "was unprecedented."
The Election of 1964 went down in history alongside the landslide elections of 1936 (FDR), 1920 (Harding), and 1904 (TR).
According to professor Kent Germany, "For Republicans it was an election disaster of monumental proportions."
JFK NOTE
LBJ benefited from the martyrdom of JFK, "Let us continue," and the split in the Republican Party between the eastern establishment GOP & conservative insurgents, represented by Goldwater, from the South & West.
SOURCES
"Electoral Myth and Reality: The 1964 Election," Cambridge University Press, September 2, 2013, www.cambridge.org/
"Lyndon B. Johnson: Campaign and Elections," by Kent Germany, UVA Miller Center, www.millercenter.org/
