Re: 1960: Goldwater/Underwood Vs. Kennedy/JohnsonDemocratic pickup for John Kennedy.
- Real National Margin: D+0.17 (Shift from 1956: D+15.57)
- Scenario National Margin
/i] D+…
I admit to not being in the mood to present a scenario map. But, to get an idea, just take the states in Richard Nixon's 1960 Republican column under 10 percentage points and flip the majority … or maybe even all of them. (Definitely with Florida and Virginia which, in 1960, made JFK the first elected Democrat to not carry these states.)
To answer this further, one should figure whether Barry Goldwater, first elected to the U.S. Senate the very same year as JFK, would have ran in 1960 as he did in 1964. This country had the Recession of 1958. It helped set in motion getting the White House party to flip from Republican to Democratic. Add to this being in a realigning period from 1932 to 1964 for the Democrats, it further reinforces that Kennedy would have defeated Goldwater.
