Timeline: Nixon defeats Kennedy in 1960

[538Electoral]

April 7th: Humphrey easily wins the Wisconsin primary.

Humphrey: 52%
Glenn: 34%
Johnson: 14%

April 8th: Johnson drops out of the race, Endorses Humphrey.

[538Electoral]

April 14th: After a hard fought battle, Humphrey narrowly wins the Illinois primary.

Humphrey: 53%
Glenn: 47%

April 21st: Glenn wins the New Jersey primary.

Glenn: 57%
Humphrey: 43%

April 28th: Glenn also wins the Massachusetts primary.

Glenn: 54%
Humphrey: 46%

A tightly contested primary race between Glenn and Humphrey. Glenn has taken the lead and is sure to become more favorable after Indiana and Ohio but it's not over for Humphrey as he's leading in California by a large margin and in Texas by about 5 points which could secure the delegates he needs to be the nominee.

[538Electoral]

May 2nd: Humphrey wins Texas by a wider margin than expected. This keeps him afloat.

Humphrey: 56%
Glenn: 44%

[538Electoral]

May 5th: Glenn wins Indiana and Ohio primaries. Humphrey wins the District of Columbia primary.

Indiana

Glenn: 61%
Humphrey: 39%

Ohio

Glenn: 72%
Humphrey: 28%

District of Columbia

Humphrey: 66%
Glenn: 34%

[538Electoral]

May 12th: Humphrey wins the Nebraska primary.

Humphrey: 59%
Glenn: 41%

Glenn also wins the West Virginia primary, Although by a narrower margin than polling anticipated.

Glenn: 52%
Humphrey: 48%

May 15th: Humphrey wins the Oregon primary.

Humphrey: 58%
Glenn: 42%

[538Electoral]

May 19th: Humphrey wins the Maryland primary.

Humphrey: 60%
Glenn: 40%

May 26th: Glenn wins the Florida primary.

Glenn: 55%
Humphrey: 45%

June 2nd: After a long and contested primary battle. Humphrey wins victories in CA and ND which allows him to secure the nomination.

CA

Humphrey: 59%
Glenn: 41%

ND

Humphrey: 53%
Glenn: 47%

Glenn speech:

My fellow Americans, We ran a wonderful campaign and I thank you all for your support. We must unite to defeat Nixon in November.

June 1964 Polling:

Nixon: 45%
Johnson: 44%

[538Electoral]

July 13th-July 16th: Humphrey accepts the party's nomination. Chooses Glenn as his running mate.

State polling map.

Humphrey/Glenn: 302 Electoral Votes and 52% of the popular vote
Nixon/Lodge: 128 Electoral Votes and 44% of the popular vote

Now, The Nixon camp might begin to panic after this but keep in mind that it's not unusual to see a party's nominee receive a major bump after their convention and it's very likely the Nixon ticket will get a bump in September.

[538Electoral]

Early August state polling.

Humphrey/Glenn: 222 Electoral Votes and 50% of the popular vote
Nixon/Lodge: 162 Electoral Votes and 47% of the popular vote

[538Electoral]

Polling right before the RNC

Nixon/Lodge: 202 Electoral Votes and 49% of the popular vote
Humphrey/Glenn: 200 Electoral Votes and 48% of the popular vote

[538Electoral]

August 24th-August 27th: Nixon accepts re-nomination for the Republican Party. Vows to win in November.

Polling map after the RNC.

Nixon/Lodge: 348 Electoral Votes and 55% of the popular vote
Humphrey/Glenn: 60 Electoral Votes and 44% of the popular vote

[Arson Plus]

Humphrey wouldn't win in the south as he was a supporter of Civil Rights and a Third Party candidate would run there like Wallace.

[Morgan Kingsley]

I think in this case, Wallace would dixiecrat and win all six of the deep south states (AR, LA, MS, AL, GA, and SC) and then runs decently in the others (even Texas where there is no Johnson tag) and actually has a chance of leaving a real impact this time, especially if the rest of the race is close

[538Electoral]

Nixon agrees to host 2 debates with Humphrey. There will not be any Vice presidential debates.

Presidential map right before the first debate.

Nixon/Lodge: 304 Electoral Votes and 52% of the popular vote
Humphrey/Glenn: 86 Electoral Votes and 46% of the popular vote

[538Electoral]

September 26th: The first debate sees Nixon giving himself credit with a good economy with Humphrey attacking him for the Cuba war and potential escalation.

Nixon: The economy is going very strong and unemployment is at just 3.2% and that all came from my presidency.

Humphrey: Yes but you do understand all of that would be useless in a nuclear catastrophe which you almost started a year ago.

Nixon: That was a year ago, Most Americans must have gotten over it by now.

Humphrey: Well I just brought it back to mind.

Most Americans agree that Humphrey wins debate.

Humphrey/Glenn: 210 Electoral Votes and 50% of the popular vote
Nixon/Lodge: 158 Electoral Votes and 49% of the popular vote

[538Electoral]

October 15th: The 2nd debate is all about Humphrey announcing his support for civil rights and Nixon's point about the economy.

Humphrey: I have announced civil rights. It is time that all blacks, hispanics and whites are all united and no one should be better or have more rights than the other.

Nixon: The unemployment rate went down to under 3% last month.

Humphrey: Many African-Americans are unemployed and this act will fix it.

Nixon: No it won't. Matter of fact, White unemployment will spike with job opportunity being lost.

Humphrey: Look at that, We have a clear racist over here.

Nixon: I'm not prejudiced against anyone, I'm stating fact.

Polls show that Humphrey again received a slight bump but now has significantly lower support in the South. On top of that, Southern states have allowed voters to write in George Wallace.

Humphrey/Glenn: 246 Electoral Votes and 49% of the popular vote
Nixon/Lodge: 196 Electoral Votes and 46% of the popular vote
Wallace (write in): 5% of the popular vote

[538Electoral]

October 28th: Nixon campaign reveals that Hubert Humphrey had lunch with Charles Cabell, One of the leading commanders of the Cuba War. Humphrey later explained that Cabell was a friend of his and said that Cabell regretted being part of the war but by that point the damage had already been done. This was said to be the October Surprise of the campaign.

Nixon/Lodge: 277 Electoral Votes and 48% of the popular vote
Humphrey/Glenn: 57 Electoral Votes and 43% of the popular vote
Wallace (write in): 9% of the popular vote

[538Electoral]

November 3rd: Here's what we know a few hours away from the election: We know that state polling now has Nixon at a significant advantage in the Electoral college. Most people would agree that Humphrey has to run the board in the toss-up states and take a state or two away from the President. Humphrey has been exclusively in California for the past few days hoping he can take that away but that seems unlikely to pay off.

Final state polling:

Nixon/Lodge: 292 Electoral Votes and 50% of the popular vote
Humphrey/Glenn: 57 Electoral Votes and 40% of the popular vote
Wallace (write in): 10% of the popular vote

[538Electoral]

ELECTION NIGHT IS HERE!

Hello, We have our first results coming in.

First off, Indiana is currently too early to call.

Second, Nixon will sweep all of Kentucky, Vermont, Virginia, Georgia and South Carolina. The latter two being flips from 1960.

44-0-13

[538Electoral]

It is 7:30 PM we have 1 projection. North Carolina goes for Nixon. The state voted for him by 0.39% last time so it's truly amazing we're calling it this soon for him.

West Virginia and Ohio are both too close to call. The fact that Ohio is too close to call should worry the Humphrey camp who thought Ohio was comfortably in their camp all season. (though it almost certainly would've been comfortably in the Nixon camp without Glenn on the ticket)

57-0-46

[538Electoral]

8PM:

We project that the newly-voting District of Columbia along with Massachusetts and Rhode Island will vote for Humphrey.

We project that Alabama, Florida, Maine, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Tennessee will all vote for Nixon. Mississippi and Alabama being flips from 1960.

Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are all either too close or too early to call.

115-21-151

[538Electoral]

8:30PM:

Arkansas goes to Nixon.

Also, Around this time we also called Missouri and Indiana for Nixon, Neither were a big surprise but it does significantly limit Humphrey's options who now pretty much needs CA to even have a shot.

146-21-126

[538Electoral]

9PM:

Nixon will win Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming.

Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York and Wisconsin are all either too close or too early to call.

Also note that Nixon already has 209 electoral votes and with MT, UT, ID and CA that would be 261. Humphrey would then have to sweep every other state pretty much with any state worth 9 electoral votes then getting Nixon over the top.

9:05PM: Right as we say we have three huge, huge projections. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Delaware will all be won by Nixon. That puts hum up to 253 electoral votes and effectively locks him at 265. Illinois getting called ends it and we think we may be close to making a projection there.

253-21-178

[538Electoral]

NIXON WINS PRESIDENCY WITH AT LEAST 279 ELECTORAL VOTES! HUMPHREY TO CONCEDE!
We have projected Illinois to be carried by the president.

279-21-152

[538Electoral]

The results are in. Nixon won every remaining state but Minnesota. Ohio was probably the biggest shock of the night.

Nixon: 54%
Humphrey: 42%
Wallace: 4%

507-31

[538Electoral]

For the senate: Republicans gain Indiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Wyoming from real life. That's a 57-43 Republican senate.

Republicans gained 31 seats in the House for a 243-192 majority.