The 1964 election was a landslide: the electoral college victory of 44 (plus the District of Columbia) against Republican Barry Goldwater's 6 was the sixth largest in history, and the popular vote margin, 61.1% to 38.5% (43,127,041 to 27,175,754), has only been bettered by the 24.3% difference between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Alf Landon in 1936. Such statistics make it hard to believe that in the forty years following the Johnson administration and the election victory of Barack Obama, the Democrats were only in office for twelve years and two administrations.
The Kennedy Legacy
It had been less than a year since the assassination of John F. Kennedy when Americans took to the polls on November 3, 1964. Johnson, as Vice-President, had ascended to the Oval Office as a result and in the interim had passed a major Civil Rights act and seen events escalate in Vietnam.
The Civil Rights Act had been a major legislative achievement, a testament to the negotiation of the Senate Johnson had mastered as Majority Leader during the Eisenhower administration. Yet the Bill had its beginnings in a June 6, 1963 speech from Kennedy, and the memory of the slain President hung over the first year of the Johnson administration. LBJ had kept Kennedy's Cabinet in place, as had been customary for every accidental President since Theodore Roosevelt, barring Harry Truman.
With the almost mythologized 'Camelot' team still together, and a nation still grieving for their great young hope, Johnson was keen to establish his own mandate; to be able to push for his desired social reforms backed by the electoral confidence of the nation. The President was also noted for his vanity, and to satisfy his self-worth and his own doubts he needed to win an election, and do so handsomely.
Republican Party Divisions
Despite the admiration devoted to John F Kennedy since his assassination, he had only won the 1960 election by an incredibly small margin over his Republican opponent, Richard Nixon, taking the popular vote by just 112,827. The Republicans began to disintegrate over the course of the next four years however, after the loss of the conciliatory force which had been Nixon, resulting in their massive defeat in 1964.
The Republican Party had begun to divide in two during the 1950s, one wing more moderate, and another more forceful in their right wing beliefs, brought together by their opposition to civil rights and other social issues. The cross-party appeal of President Eisenhower, and the ability of his Vice-President, Nixon, to satisfy both sides' demands had nullified these differences and resulted in two Republican victories and a narrow loss. Without Nixon, whose political career looked dead in 1964 after a failed 1962 run for Governor in California, the GOP nominated Barry Goldwater.
Goldwater, the Senator for Arizona, was of great appeal to the right of the party, but was anathema to the moderate wing, which contained popular figures such as New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. As a result, prominent Republicans did not campaign for Goldwater, thus limiting his ability to win moderate votes from the Democrats. This divide within the Republican Party would ultimately lead to the development of a new Republican base which saw fruition under Ronald Reagan and voted both Bush, Sr. and Jr. into power.
The 1964 Campaign
Senator Goldwater's language at the Republican convention and on the trail contained enough provocative language for the Johnson campaign to successfully portray him as an extremist and racist, whilst Johnson took a moderate line, advocating his desire for nuclear test ban treaties and much-needed domestic reform.
Goldwater lacked the support of former President Eisenhower, due to earlier comments the Senator had made which were critical of the general. Lacking the public backing of Eisenhower and Rockefeller, two Republicans with broad appeal, not even the spirited campaigning of Nixon and actor Ronald Reagan could save the Goldwater campaign.
Johnson's popular vote was the largest achieved since James Monroe ran effectively unopposed in 1820. Goldwater only carried his home state of Arizona and five southern states angered by the Civil Rights Act, giving Johnson an electoral college landslide.
The overwhelming nature of Lyndon Johnson's victory surprisingly led to Hubert Humphrey falling to the resurgent Nixon in 1968. Following Roosevelt's 1936 landslide, the Democrats won the next three elections, and were only stopped by national hero Eisenhower. The intervening years proved dramatic enough to profoundly change the electorate for the next forty years.
Key sources:
Dave Leip's Atlas of US Election Results - http://www.uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?f=0&year=1964
Princeton University Library - http://www.princeton.edu/~pubadmin/elec.html
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