This week I choose to do my blog over the Presidential Election of 1964. The people that were running were Lyndon B. Johnson and Barry Goldwater. Lyndon B. Johnson was the democratic candidate and had been President for less than one year. He was only President for one year because in 1963 JFK was assassinated. Johnson was just as popular as JFK had been. Johnson’s running mate was Hubert Humphrey. The Republican candidate was Barry Goldwater. He was a Senator from Arizona. The running mate for Goldwater was William E. Miller.
Johnson wanted to make Goldwater look bad during the election. He said that Goldwater wanted to get rid of many of the New Deal Acts that were popular during that time period. Johnson supported social welfare programs and talked about creating more which made him even more popular with the people. The candidates kept supporting their causes until the people voted on November 3, 1964.
This election was a huge blowout. It was the 6th largest blowout of all time and no election after the election of 1964 has been so lopsided. Johnson won 44 states as well as the District of Columbia. On the other had Goldwater only won 6 states. Johnson also won the electoral vote by a count of 486 to 52. The popular vote was also on Johnson’s side by a count of 43,127,041 to 27,175,754.
Researching this topic was very interesting. I thought it was interesting that Johnson was just as popular as JFK was. I also thought it was weird that it was such a huge blowout. Another thing I thought was interesting that Arizona voted for Goldwater even though the only other states to vote for him were in the South. All in all it was a very interesting topic to research.
Sources_
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1964
http://modern-us-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_presidential_election_of_1964
Comments