Why did Goldwater lose Florida?

[Yu748Girl83]

Question randomly popped into my head and I felt like asking, why did Florida vote blue in 1964?

[Sumner 1868]

Because he openly and repeatedly boasted he wanted Social Security privatized. That's why the map of Florida in 1960 is a virtual opposite of the 1964 one: the Panhandle Dixiecrats flipped toward Goldwater,  but it was cancelled out by the elderly communities swinging Democratic.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Most counties in Central and South Florida that had voted Republican in 60 stayed Republican, but not by as much. The one big county that flipped to the Democrats was Pinellas. LBJ picked up a lot of votes in the Miami and Tampa Bay metros.

[Del Tachi]

Florida was already booming by 1964.  The population of the state doubled between 1930 and 1950, and grew another 50% between 1950 and 1960.  LBJ was a good fit for the transplants who populated South and Central Florida during the era.  The northern panhandle region where Goldwater won resoundingly is Florida's least dynamic, and has always functioned as part of the Deep South.

[All Along The Watchtower]

So funny that the Deep South parts of Florida went for the guy representing a quintessential “Sun Belt”/fast-growing state while the fast-growing Sun Belt areas of FL went for a guy who grew up dirt poor in central Texas, but such were the dynamics of the 1964 race.

[wnwnwn]

So funny that the Deep South parts of Florida went for the guy representing a quintessential “Sun Belt”/fast-growing state while the fast-growing Sun Belt areas of FL went for a guy who grew up dirt poor in central Texas, but such were the dynamics of the 1964 race.

LBJ did fine in the upper south.

Well, LBJ's raw margin in Miami Dade was 4,31% of the total state vote (margin, not total county vote). Goldwater need 14 counties at minimun to get a bigger raw margin.