1960 Electoral Map

1960 Election Results

John F. Kennedy defeated Vice President Richard Nixon, returning the White House to Democrats after eight years of Dwight Eisenhower. Kennedy won 303 electoral votes to Nixon’s 219, with 15 going to segregationist Sen. Harry Byrd. The national popular vote was nearly a tie.

The difference was Kennedy’s strength in big industrial states. He flipped New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Michigan, all of which Eisenhower had carried in 1956, while holding enough of the South to assemble a majority. Texas, home to running mate Lyndon Johnson, also moved into the Democratic column.

Illinois was particularly close: Kennedy won its 27 electoral votes by just 8,858 votes. New Jersey and Missouri also went Democratic by less than one percentage point. Those narrow victories mattered more than Nixon’s advantage in the number of states won.

Kennedy’s performance in the first televised presidential debates helped him answer doubts about his experience, and he became the nation’s first Catholic president. But the map also exposed strains within his coalition: unpledged electors in Alabama and Mississippi backed Byrd, foreshadowing the fight over civil rights that would reshape both parties.