United States presidential election, 1964 (High Hopes)

The 1964 United States Presidential Election was the 45th quadrennial It was held on November 3rd 1964 between popular incumbent  John F. Kennedy and Republican nominee. Kennedy successfully tapped into his existing support, and expanded his base enough for a narrow victory over his opponent. It was the second closest victory on US election history, after only Kennedy's victory over in 1960. No race since has been nearly as close - even the most contested wins since 1964 have been decided by a margin of at least half a percent.

Despite his eventual victory, Kennedy's campaign had to contend against multiple conspiracy theories and scandals, plus the well run Rockefeller campaign. For example, Kennedy's initial refusal to denounce announced candidacy for the vice presidential slot lead many to believe that he had intended to ditch Johnson as VP. In addition, questionable behavior from Both Kennedy and Johnson in lead many to believe they had attempted to rig the election in Texas, accusations that were only furthered by the incredibly tight margin in the state. Ultimately, Kennedy barely managed to win the election, winning only 23 states and 289.

Rockefeller's defeat - close as it was - did a lot of damage to the Republican Party. It would destroy the credibility of the moderate wing of the party for many cycles to come, while the conservative wing would continue to be stunningly unpopular with the American electorate. Rockefeller's defeat would cause the Republican Party to abandon most of their moderate policies, and with them, a fair amount of their popularity. Even the eventual election of Nixon in 1976 wouldn't help the Republican Party much, and it would take the election of Ross Perot in 1996 to get the party back on course.

Meanwhile, the election would cause a minor realignment in the electoral map. Rockefeller would manage to keep the margin on a knife's edge in large parts of the south, while Kennedy would use his status as a native New Englander to win for the Democrats, while keeping the margins close in, and. Both of would prove to be pretty minor but lasting changes to the electoral landscaped. Overtime, New England would swing more democratic, though the rest of the northeast wouldn't follow, at least not to the same extent. Meanwhile, the south would remain largely divided, and even up to the present day, many southern states are regularly battlegrounds.

As previously mentioned, no candidate of either party would have an election this close after it. The next closest would be 2004, when Hilary Clinton beat John McCain by just half a point, and after that, 1984, when Ronald Reagan would beat Robert Byrd by just 2.4 percentage points.

Democratic Party
The first to declare their candidacy for the democratic nomination was the obvious, the incumbent Kennedy, who declared candidacy on January 2nd, 1964. Within a few weeks,, , as well as a few others declared their candidacy. However, they collectively formed an extremely weak political force, and as a result, Kennedy largely sat out of campaigning throughout January and the first half of February. Finally, on February 15th, Kennedy flew up to New Hampshire to campaign. Despite his relatively light campaigning, by the 28th Kennedy had garnered almost 80% of the vote according to the only available poll. While in the last few days his number fell a little, he still managed to snatch 68% of the vote. The next highest was Humphrey, but even he only claimed 18% of the vote. Soon afterwards every candidate, save for Kennedy, dropped out of the race, leaving the incumbent an easy path to nomination.

With the nomination out of the way, Kennedy hit the trail for the general campaign. He started in the north east, notably focusing on New England, where the Kennedy felt he could leverage his status as a native New Englander to sweep the region. Meanwhile, Johnson began to focus on Texas, notably focusing on rural regions. While at this point it seemed that the Democratic ticket would be Kennedy-Johnson, on August 4th, just after the Republican convention, Humphrey again declared his candidacy, this time for the Vice Presidency. This message inspired other Democrats, such as McCormack, to declare their candidacy as well. This was a huge blow to Kennedy's campaign, which apparently attempted to contact Humphrey and tell him to stop. However, by the time the convention started, there were 4 viable Vice Presidential candidates, all struggling for position.

Right before the convention started, the final rules were settled on. Each delegate would get two votes, one for the president and one for the vice president. While the delegates that were bound by primaries were still bound, all votes for Vice Presidential nominee would be completely unbound. This lead to a lot of tension when the convention began on August 24th. Within three hours of the convention beginning, Kennedy won the first ballot, thus becoming the Democratic nominee. Meanwhile the first Vice Presidential ballot had been a lot less conclusive. Despite Johnson's agents doing damage control and trying to pitch their candidate to delegates, he only got 30% to Humphrey's 28%. The other 42% was split evenly between McCormack and. After the first and second ballots (both yielded approximately the same result) Robertson dropped put, raising the stakes by endorsing Humphrey.

After the two ballots on the 24th, many doubted if Johnson would be able to get passed the third ballot, on the morning of the 25th. After all, Robertson had endorsed Humphrey, and their combined delegate count was around 51%. Meanwhile, McCormack seemed to be losing support, giving Humphrey the opportunity to raise his total even more. However, probably through the strength of his floor agents, Johnson was able to keep Humphrey's total to 46% of the delegates, with Johnson at 42% and Mcormack taking the remainder. The next ballot brought Johnson and Humphrey neck and neck to 41% for Johnson and 42% for Humphrey. That would be the last ballot for the 25th, and after it McCormack would drop out. Without McCormack in the race, the next ballot would be decisive.

Overnight, there was a lot of speculation about who would win. On one hand, Johnson was unquestionably better at reaching out to the delegates, but on the other hand Humphrey had plenty of popular support, and was just barely ahead. Whatever the final result was, it seemed it would be incredibly close, if not a dead tie. Surprisingly, this was not at all the case - the next morning, Johnson won the nomination in a landslide, with 64% of the delegates voting for him. While this quickly raised questions of ballot rigging or intimidation, any serious concern was widely overshadowed by the rest of the convention, which after the fifth ballot, become less interesting, but still a newsworthy event. In many people's minds, the fight for the nomination strengthened the party, and may have even helped Kennedy win the election.

Republican Party
Unlike the Democratic primary, which had included nine popular contenders, the Republican primary featured only two major candidates. The first was widely expected, that being the popular moderate Nelson Rockefeller. The second candidate was not as expected, but could still probably have been predicted, that being Barry Goldwater. Coincidentally, they declared there candidacy on the same day, February 3rd. After this, both immediately went to New Hampshire to compete in the states early primary. In addition to campaigning in New Hampshire candidates also toured other parts of the Northeast, notably Vermont and Maine, as well as shorter trips to Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York. However, by March 10th, both candidates had spent well over 30 days in the state.

When the election was held on March 10th, it wasn't even close. 59% of the vote went to Rockefeller, while Goldwater only manged to garner 29% of the vote. The other 12% was split between several minor candidates, all who dropped out immediately after the primary. Meanwhile, Goldwater was greatly weakened as a candidate, and had lost a fair share of his popularity. Despite attempts to double down on his rhetoric, he still lost every primary contest, and polls showed him lagging behind Rockefeller by as much as 45 points. As one pundit put it, "He's a reactionary with nothing to react to." After not being able to win a single primary, or even lose one by less than 25 points, by May 15th, Goldwater conceded and dropped out of the race. He refused to endorse Rockefeller, even after multiple reporters directly asked him if he would.

In direct contrast to the Democratic convention, the Republican convention went smoothly, and entirely as planned. Rockefeller won his first ballot, as did Scranton, who was announced as his Vice Presidential nominee on May 29th. After that, the convention was mostly speeches from prominent Republicans, and Republican leaning celebrities. These speeches were pretty successful, and did a lot to bring in the few Republicans that still supported Goldwater, mostly via Rockefeller adopting certain elements of his platform. The convention did give Rockefeller and Scranton a noticeable boost on the polls, but it soon wore off. In fact, many argue the Kennedy and Johnson got more benefit from their convention, due to the greater amount of coverage. However, the Republican convention did help heal a rift in the party, though some point out that the rift would have been healed anyway. Either way, the convention was pretty successful, and probably contributed to the ultimate closeness of the race.

Background
After the completion of the democratic convention, the Kennedy campaign was thought to be at a significant disadvantage. Not only was Rockefeller running five points ahead of him, but Rockefeller had spent the time since his convention raising millions of dollars to finance his campaign. Even the vast resources of the Kennedy family would be hard pressed to compete with Rockefeller's donations. Not only that, but Rockefeller had spent a lot of time in the west, and had largely locked down the region - states like Nevada and Hawaii that Kennedy had won in 1960 were now well out of his reach. Scranton had also spent a lot of time in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan hurting Kennedy's chances there. Thus, even before the campaign really kicked off, Kennedy's reelection bid was already looking to be an abject failure.

Kennedy determined that the only real chance for a second term would be to lock down the south - something he had failed to do in 1960 when Byrd took several southern states - and expand the map in the north. In order to do this, Kennedy would need a popular, widely appealing, and uncontroversial platform. After much debate, he and Johnson agreed to avoid debate about civil rights during the election, realizing it would destroy their chances of winning. Instead, the main issue they decided to focus on was the economy, proposing large tax cuts. Their other major issue would be foreign policy, where Kennedy's victory in the Cuban Missile Crisis could be a huge asset, and they could also profit from the Democrat's more popular foreign policy platform. With their strategy and policy set out, Kennedy and Johnson parted ways, Kennedy going to New England and Johnson taking care of the south.

Meanwhile, despite being ahead in the polls at first, Rockefeller's campaign started off shaky. Because of Goldwater, he had been forced to include several major tenants of conservatism within his platform. While these weren't particularly unpopular, Rockefeller had a hard time reconciling his more natural moderate polices with the conservative ones that had been thrust upon him. So, instead of campaigning heavily, Rockefeller initially spent most of his time in the west fundraising, leaving Scranton to campaign in the east. This certainly wasn't the worst course of action - Scranton was popular enough to campaign credibly, and definitely helped bring Pennsylvania and Michigan out of Kennedy's column, and Rockefeller's fundraising was successful. However, this choice probably represented a huge missed opportunity - if both Rockefeller and Scranton had been campaigning, they might have done irrecoverable damage to the Kennedy campaign.

August
By August, only the Republicans had secured their nominees, and because of this, the race was mostly one sided. While Kennedy and Johnson fumbled around the south and Northeast, it was unclear if Johnson would even be the vice presidential nominee, and both had to focus more on the convention. Meanwhile, Rockefeller and Scranton were building their campaign and message. For many, their rhetoric was surprisingly conservative, but they still claimed the mantel of moderates. While this seemed disingenuous (In fact, Johnson, and less often Kennedy, would often attack them for this), the platform was popular enough, and while no polling is available, it's safe to say Rockefeller held a substantial lead at this point. The only weak spot was that Rockefeller did little to extend his lead - for the most part, he stayed in the west fundraising, leaving most of the campaigning to Scranton.

In contrast to the well run Rockefeller campaign, Kennedy and Johnson fumbled around for most of August. To start with, much of the month was engulfed by preparation for the convention, leaving the pair with no real time to campaign outside of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Humphrey's bid to become vice president soon became a thorn in the campaign's side, as the man started a smear campaign against Johnson. While Humphrey would later state the campaign was ill advised, it still hurt Johnson, and by extension, Kennedy. When the convention rolled around, Kennedy was barely maintaining his public image as his campaign continued to ail. The convention worked miracles for the campaign, and after Johnson secured the nomination, brought the campaign back on course. By the end of the month, Kennedy and Johnson took to the campaign trail with vigor, trailing their opponents by only one point.