The 1964 United States presidential election happened on November 3, 1964. It was between Democrat Lyndon Johnson, President of the United States, and his running mate Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, against Republican Barry Goldwater, a Senator from Arizona, and his running mate, Congressman William Miller of New York.

Quick Facts Nominee, Party ...
1964 United States presidential election

 1960 November 3, 1964 1968 
  Thumb
Nominee Lyndon B. Johnson Barry Goldwater
Party Democratic Republican
Home state Texas Arizona
Running mate Hubert Humphrey William E. Miller
Electoral vote 486 52
States carried 44 + DC 6
Popular vote 43,127,041 27,175,754
Percentage 61.1% 38.5%

Thumb
Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Goldwater/Miller, Blue denotes those won by Johnson/Humphrey. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.

President before election

Lyndon B. Johnson
Democratic

Elected President

Lyndon B. Johnson
Democratic

Close

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated and Johnson (his vice president) became president of the United States.

Lyndon Johnson campaigned to continue many of Kennedy's policies and ideas such as civil rights. He supported a series of programs called the "Great Society" to improve the quality of living for poor people which included programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and environmental programs.

Barry Goldwater had the opposite belief that the government should be smaller and he was against government programs. During his campaign, actor Ronald Reagan made a famous speech called "A Time For Choosing" in support of Goldwater. Goldwater, during the campaign, was portrayed as an extremist who condoned the actions of the KKK and would cause nuclear war. His beliefs were radical at the time, but they would later influence many libertarian and conservative politicians.

Lyndon Johnson won the election by a landslide, and this was the last presidential election where Democrats carried any of 8 particular states.

Candidates

Democratic Party

Republican Party

Other websites

Wikiwand in your browser!

Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.

Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.

Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.