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1964 United States presidential election in Pennsylvania

Main article: 1964 United States presidential election

The 1964 United States presidential election in Pennsylvania took place on November 3, 1964, and was part of the 1964 United States presidential election. Voters chose 29 representatives to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president. Pennsylvania overwhelmingly voted for the Democratic nominee, President Lyndon B. Johnson, over the Republican nominee, Senator Barry Goldwater. Johnson won Pennsylvania by a margin of 30.22%. Apart from William Howard Taft in 1912 (when third-party candidates obtained substantial minorities of the vote), Goldwater's 34.7% of the vote is easily the worst showing for a Republican in the state since the party was founded.[1] Even relative to Johnson's popular vote landslide, Pennsylvania came out as 7.64% more Democratic than the nation at-large; the only occasion under the current two-party system that the state has been more anomalously Democratic than this was in Ronald Reagan's 1984 landslide.[1]

1964 United States presidential election in Pennsylvania
← 1960 November 3, 1964 1968 →
 
Nominee Lyndon B. Johnson Barry Goldwater
Party Democratic Republican
Home state Texas Arizona
Running mate Hubert Humphrey William E. Miller
Electoral vote 29 0
Popular vote 3,130,954 1,673,657
Percentage 64.92% 34.70%
President before election

Lyndon B. Johnson
Democratic

Elected President

Lyndon B. Johnson
Democratic

During the 1960s the Republican Party was turning its attention from the declining rural Yankee counties to the growing and traditionally Democratic Catholic vote,[2] along with the conservative Sun Belt whose growth was driven by lower taxes, warm weather, and air conditioning. This growth meant that activist Republicans centered in the Sun Belt had become much more conservative than the majority of members in historic Northeastern GOP strongholds.[3]

The consequence of this was that a bitterly divided Republican Party was able to nominate the staunchly conservative Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who ran with the equally conservative Republican National Committee chair, Congressman William E. Miller of New York, for president in 1964. Goldwater was widely seen in the liberal Northeastern United States as a right-wing extremist or at least an inexperienced nominee prone to gaffes;[4] he had voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Johnson campaign portrayed him as liable to provoke a nuclear war.[5] Goldwater wrote Pennsylvania off from the very beginning of his campaign.[6] Pennsylvania Republicans had generally preferred moderate Governor William Scranton for the nomination, who was unsuccessfully encouraged to run by Dwight D. Eisenhower.[7] Many Pennsylvania Republicans, such as Representative James G. Fulton, refused to endorse Goldwater.[8]

Results

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1964 United States presidential election in Pennsylvania[9]
Party Candidate Votes Percentage Electoral votes
Democratic Lyndon B. Johnson (incumbent) 3,130,954 64.92% 29
Republican Barry Goldwater 1,673,657 34.70% 0
Militant Workers Clifton DeBerry 10,456 0.22% 0
Socialist Labor Eric Hass 5,092 0.11% 0
Write-ins Write-ins 2,531 0.05% 0
Totals 4,822,690 100.00% 29
Voter turnout (voting age/registered) 68%/84%

Results by county

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County Lyndon B. Johnson
Democratic 		Barry Goldwater
Republican 		Various candidates
Other parties 		Margin Total votes cast
# % # % # % # %
Adams 11,148 56.13% 8,617 43.39% 95 0.48% 2,531 12.74% 19,860
Allegheny 475,207 66.03% 241,707 33.58% 2,811 0.39% 233,500 32.45% 719,725
Armstrong 21,098 66.37% 10,618 33.40% 74 0.23% 10,480 32.97% 31,790
Beaver 60,492 72.02% 23,174 27.59% 327 0.39% 37,318 44.43% 83,993
Bedford 9,165 53.45% 7,968 46.47% 14 0.08% 1,197 6.98% 17,147
Berks 73,444 66.38% 36,726 33.19% 476 0.43% 36,718 33.19% 110,646
Blair 26,157 51.76% 24,301 48.09% 73 0.14% 1,856 3.67% 50,531
Bradford 10,714 50.63% 10,434 49.31% 14 0.07% 280 1.32% 21,162
Bucks 78,287 60.60% 50,243 38.89% 646 0.50% 28,044 21.71% 129,176
Butler 27,267 60.97% 17,360 38.82% 95 0.21% 9,907 22.15% 44,722
Cambria 55,183 67.63% 26,281 32.21% 134 0.16% 28,902 35.42% 81,598
Cameron 1,904 57.96% 1,376 41.89% 5 0.15% 528 16.07% 3,285
Carbon 15,416 67.49% 7,309 32.00% 116 0.51% 8,107 35.49% 22,841
Centre 16,556 63.20% 9,481 36.19% 158 0.60% 7,075 27.01% 26,195
Chester 47,940 54.10% 40,280 45.46% 390 0.44% 7,660 8.64% 88,610
Clarion 9,235 60.01% 6,143 39.92% 11 0.07% 3,092 20.09% 15,389
Clearfield 19,211 62.67% 11,338 36.99% 103 0.34% 7,873 25.68% 30,652
Clinton 10,038 69.84% 4,298 29.91% 36 0.25% 5,740 39.93% 14,372
Columbia 13,885 60.63% 8,982 39.22% 36 0.16% 4,903 21.41% 22,903
Crawford 18,212 62.82% 10,664 36.78% 115 0.40% 7,548 26.04% 28,991
Cumberland 26,633 52.71% 23,685 46.88% 207 0.41% 2,948 5.83% 50,525
Dauphin 46,119 51.57% 42,718 47.77% 594 0.66% 3,401 3.80% 89,431
Delaware 147,189 56.81% 111,189 42.91% 717 0.28% 36,000 13.90% 259,095
Elk 10,455 70.51% 4,354 29.36% 19 0.13% 6,101 41.15% 14,828
Erie 72,944 69.55% 31,393 29.93% 549 0.52% 41,551 39.62% 104,886
Fayette 45,155 73.35% 16,127 26.20% 276 0.45% 29,028 47.15% 61,558
Forest 1,249 57.99% 900 41.78% 5 0.23% 349 16.21% 2,154
Franklin 19,332 58.68% 13,525 41.06% 85 0.26% 5,807 17.62% 32,942
Fulton 2,180 55.37% 1,747 44.37% 10 0.25% 433 11.00% 3,937
Greene 11,412 74.46% 3,896 25.42% 19 0.12% 7,516 49.04% 15,327
Huntingdon 7,435 52.96% 6,571 46.81% 33 0.24% 864 6.15% 14,039
Indiana 17,568 59.92% 11,706 39.92% 46 0.16% 5,862 20.00% 29,320
Jefferson 10,851 56.34% 8,373 43.47% 37 0.19% 2,478 12.87% 19,261
Juniata 4,138 57.19% 3,087 42.67% 10 0.14% 1,051 14.52% 7,235
Lackawanna 88,131 73.73% 31,272 26.16% 137 0.11% 56,859 47.57% 119,540
Lancaster 53,041 50.27% 52,243 49.52% 224 0.21% 798 0.75% 105,508
Lawrence 29,092 64.35% 15,998 35.39% 117 0.26% 13,094 28.96% 45,207
Lebanon 15,882 46.93% 17,891 52.86% 72 0.21% −2,009 −5.93% 33,845
Lehigh 60,377 64.86% 32,245 34.64% 471 0.51% 28,132 30.22% 93,093
Luzerne 106,397 69.97% 43,895 28.86% 1,779 1.17% 62,502 41.11% 152,071
Lycoming 25,879 57.58% 19,011 42.30% 55 0.12% 6,868 15.28% 44,945
McKean 10,950 57.61% 7,948 41.82% 109 0.57% 3,002 15.79% 19,007
Mercer 32,199 63.68% 18,153 35.90% 211 0.42% 14,046 27.78% 50,563
Mifflin 8,811 59.31% 6,006 40.43% 39 0.26% 2,805 18.88% 14,856
Monroe 10,622 62.41% 6,281 36.91% 116 0.68% 4,341 25.50% 17,019
Montgomery 135,657 56.74% 102,714 42.96% 704 0.29% 32,943 13.78% 239,075
Montour 3,683 59.27% 2,527 40.67% 4 0.06% 1,156 18.60% 6,214
Northampton 58,818 73.08% 21,048 26.15% 619 0.77% 37,770 46.93% 80,485
Northumberland 28,082 62.07% 17,046 37.68% 116 0.26% 11,036 24.39% 45,244
Perry 6,054 52.86% 5,364 46.84% 34 0.30% 690 6.02% 11,452
Philadelphia 670,645 73.42% 239,733 26.24% 3,094 0.34% 430,912 47.18% 913,472
Pike 2,753 50.74% 2,651 48.86% 22 0.41% 102 1.88% 5,426
Potter 3,652 52.86% 3,232 46.78% 25 0.36% 420 6.08% 6,909
Schuylkill 50,560 65.63% 26,386 34.25% 96 0.12% 24,174 31.38% 77,042
Snyder 4,199 44.59% 5,195 55.17% 22 0.23% −996 −10.58% 9,416
Somerset 17,934 54.65% 14,817 45.15% 63 0.19% 3,117 9.50% 32,814
Sullivan 1,690 55.63% 1,344 44.24% 4 0.13% 346 11.39% 3,038
Susquehanna 7,838 54.37% 6,567 45.55% 12 0.08% 1,271 8.82% 14,417
Tioga 7,415 51.16% 7,064 48.73% 16 0.11% 351 2.43% 14,495
Union 4,262 46.25% 4,944 53.65% 10 0.11% −682 −7.40% 9,216
Venango 13,065 56.75% 9,873 42.89% 84 0.36% 3,192 13.86% 23,022
Warren 10,598 63.62% 5,965 35.81% 94 0.56% 4,633 27.81% 16,657
Washington 63,482 72.34% 24,127 27.49% 147 0.17% 39,355 44.85% 87,756
Wayne 5,781 46.89% 6,512 52.82% 35 0.28% −731 −5.93% 12,328
Westmoreland 107,131 71.70% 41,493 27.77% 792 0.53% 65,638 43.93% 149,416
Wyoming 4,268 52.41% 3,864 47.45% 12 0.15% 404 4.96% 8,144
York 58,787 63.30% 33,677 36.26% 408 0.44% 25,110 27.04% 92,872
Totals 3,130,954 64.92% 1,673,657 34.70% 18,079 0.37% 1,457,297 30.22% 4,822,690

Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic

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Analysis

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Johnson won all but four counties in Pennsylvania: the central Pennsylvania counties of Snyder and Union, which have not voted Democratic since the Civil War;[10] northeastern Wayne County, which has never voted Democratic since Grover Cleveland won it in 1892; and Lebanon County, which has only once voted Democratic since 1856 (when Franklin D. Roosevelt narrowly won it in his 1936 landslide).[11] This was the last presidential election in which Philadelphia was not the most Democratic county in Pennsylvania. This is also the only occasion since 1856 when Somerset, Lancaster, and Huntingdon counties have not voted for the Republican presidential candidate, and marked the first time since that election when suburban Delaware County had not voted Republican.[12]

Six other counties including Butler, Bradford, Tioga, Potter, Cameron and McKean cast their solitary vote for a Democratic presidential candidate since at least the Civil War in this election. In addition, much of the Susquehanna Valley and Appalachia (comprising York County, Cumberland County, Franklin County, Adams County, Blair County, Lycoming County, Northumberland County, Bedford County, Butler County, Clarion County, Crawford County, Fulton County, Pike County, Venango County, Mifflin County, Perry County, Jefferson County, Susquehanna County, Wyoming County, Juniata County, Montour County, and Sullivan County) has never voted for a Democratic candidate since.[10]

This was the last occasion until 2008 that the Democrats won Dauphin County, Berks County, Monroe County, or Chester County.[13]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b "Pennsylvania Voting Results and Participants". CountingTheVotes.com. Retrieved January 27, 2024.
  2. ^ Phillips, Kevin; The Emerging Republican Majority; pp. 55–60, ISBN 978-0-691-16324-6.
  3. ^ Nexon, David; 'Asymmetry in the Political System: Occasional Activists in the Republican and Democratic Parties, 1956-1964', The American Political Science Review, vol. 65, No. 3 (September 1971), pp. 716–730.
  4. ^ Donaldson, Gary; Liberalism's Last Hurrah: The Presidential Campaign of 1964; p. 190, ISBN 1510702369.
  5. ^ Edwards, Lee and Schlafly, Phyllis; Goldwater: The Man Who Made a Revolution; pp. 286–290, ISBN 162157458X.
  6. ^ Kelley, Stanley junior; 'The Goldwater Strategy'; The Princeton Review; pp. 8–11.
  7. ^ Donaldson; Liberalism's Last Hurrah, chapter 3.
  8. ^ Donaldson; Liberalism's Last Hurrah, p. 180.
  9. ^ Tim Murphy. "1964 Presidential General Election Results – Pennsylvania". David Leip's Atlas of US Presidential Elections. Retrieved March 25, 2018.
  10. ^ a b Sullivan, Robert David; ‘How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century’; America Magazine in The National Catholic Review; June 29, 2016.
  11. ^ Scammon, Richard M. (compiler); America at the Polls: A Handbook of Presidential Election Statistics 1920-1964; p. 381, ISBN 0405077114.
  12. ^ Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, pp. 287–290, ISBN 0786422173.
  13. ^ Evie Stone. "372 Counties Flipped In '08". NPR. Retrieved May 3, 2024.
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