Describe a Nixon 1960/Johnson 1964 voter in Mississippi

[TheReckoning]

Some must’ve existed?

[darklordoftech]

Someone with unionist ancestors.

[Mr. Smith]

Black voter skeptical of JFK and national Dems until Civil Rights Act. Probably joined the Freedom Dems.

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

Northern transplant

[lfromnj]

Thad Cochran said he was this IIRC?

[sting in the rafters]

Johnson's strongest region by far was in northeast Mississippi. Coincidentally, this was JFK's strongest region 4 years earlier. Obviously JFK contended with unpledged electors, which siphoned a lot of the traditional Yellow Dog Dem vote which otherwise would've gone to him, Nixon, or stayed home. If I had to conjecture, the most likely explanation is the TVA's prominence in NEMS's economy. Therefore, a feasible profile exists of a TVA employee who voted Nixon in line with traditional anti-Catholic sentiments, yet swung back to LBJ in '64 as self-interest brought them to loathe Goldwater's minarchist crusade.

Edit: Goldwater indeed advocated for privatizing the TVA! Good work mystery team!

[Skill and Chance]

Someone with unionist ancestors.

I think this is the best answer.  A grandchild of the Free State of Jones people who greatly admired their grandfather.

[Schiff for Senate]

A few of the southern whites who weren't racist, but were anti-Catholic.
Or who were ancestral Democrats who only made an exception because they really, really hate Catholics and will even tolerate a civil rights supporter, just not a Catholic.
Or an anti-Catholic who didn't like Johnson's support for civil rights but considered the trade-off worth it because he liked the Great Society and opposed Goldwater's plans to slash funding from government programs.

[If my soul was made of stone]

Edit: Goldwater indeed advocated for privatizing the TVA! Good work mystery team!

Indeed if one looks at Alabama in '64, you can see that the strongest region for the unpledged slate that replaced LBJ there is the Tennessee Valley, a rare relative bastion of blue-collar unionization in the region. Wallace then did better there than statewide in '68, shades of hard-hat rioters...

Some of Alabama's TVA counties held out as late as Gore '00 before succumbing to the inevitable. Esteemed Atlas blogger Alcibiades quite likes to trot out the story of Tennessee's Houston County, also core TVA country, being the only rural white county in the state to vote against an abortion ban ballot initiative in 2014, even though it had already flipped presidentially for good in 2012. As above, so below.

[Dude of the Flowers]

Thad Cochran said he was this IIRC?

I know Cochran voted for LBJ and was on Nixon's campaign team in 1968, but I can't find how he voted in 1960. He was still a Democrat until 1967, and his vote for LBJ was largely because he saw himself as a "standard Democrat", so he might have voted for Kennedy in 1960.

Still, we found at least one Johnson 1964-Nixon 1968 voter in the state.

Source: politico.com/news/magazine/2019/12/29/thad-cochran-the-last-southern-gentleman-089917