Why did Staten Island vote for Nixon in 1960?

[electionsguy259]

In 1960, the voters of Staten Island (Richmond County) in NYC voted 57% for Nixon as opposed to 43% for JFK. This seems quite strange, considering that this area is overwhelmingly Catholic, and that JFK won around 83% of all American Catholics in the 1960 presidential election. I know that Staten Island is very Republican-leaning compared to other parts of NYC, but it still seems somewhat odd that the results weren't even that close.

[Blow by blow, the passion dies]

Liberal Republicanism. It's as simple

[electionsguy259]

What makes the 1960 result even odder is that Staten Island had voted for Al Smith (the first major party Catholic presidential nominee) in 1928, even as he lost statewide in New York.

[wnwnwn]

It leans republican since 1940.

[King of Kensington]

NYC Catholics were also less Democratic than elsewhere.  Both Beyond the Melting Pot and The Emerging Republican Majority mention this. 

I'm also not sure how Italian Staten Island was in 1960.  It was a lot less populated then.  Where there's an old Italian community but I don't think it became Italian-dominated until after 1965 with migration from southern tier of Brooklyn.

[electionsguy259]

NYC Catholics were also less Democratic than elsewhere.  Both Beyond the Melting Pot and The Emerging Republican Majority mention this. 

I'm also not sure how Italian Staten Island was in 1960.  It was a lot less populated then.  Where there's an old Italian community but I don't think it became Italian-dominated until after 1965 with migration from southern tier of Brooklyn.

Thanks, this makes a lot of sense.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I'm not sure how important this is, but in addition to the above, Italians seem to have been more likely to be Republicans (than the Irish) in places like New York or Massachusetts. Recall Fiorello LaGuardia and John Volpe.

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

White Catholic New Yorkers were less left-leaning then in other cities. I've read that Kennedy actually would likely have lost the student body at Fordham University if not for the minority of Jewish students putting him over the top. Interestingly, Staten Island was also historically Democratic until WWI before swinging sharply to the right which suggests their might be some deep ancestral copperhead style conservatism present.

[King of Kensington]

Yes, according to Beyond the Melting Pot it was only thanks to Jewish students at the College of Pharmacy that Kennedy won the student body at Fordham University.

[Republican Party Stalwart]

I'm not sure how important this is, but in addition to the above, Italians seem to have been more likely to be Republicans (than the Irish) in places like New York or Massachusetts. Recall Fiorello LaGuardia and John Volpe.

I imagine this was likely also the case in Philadelphia - where both Irish and Italian Catholics presumably largely leaned strongly Republican, under the Cameron-Quay-Penrose GOP political machine, until after FDR's inauguration (as well as after FDR's inauguration in the Philly suburbs until the 90s), although I don't have any direct evidence to back myself up one way or the other. Philly is proportionately more Irish and less Italian than NYC, so it's mathematically undoubtable that the Irish in the city were far more Republican than in NYC or the nation at-large. However, there indeed was at least some "Irish Democrat" contingent present in the city's population during the 19th century/pre-New Deal 20th century era (one example of its significance being the 10 October 1871 street clashes between Irish Democrats and Black Republicans which resulted in the murder of Black Republican operative and civil rights activist Octavius Catto by Irish Democrat Frank Kelly). Therefore, it wouldn't surprise me if there were ever times of a dynamic of Italians, Polish, etc. in Philadelphia leaning GOP relative to the local Irish (perhaps in certain areas if not in the whole city).

Also, in Illinois, there were at least some documented instances of Polish-Americans in Chicagoland voting GOP as a response to Irish-American Democratic bloc voting in Chicago and/or NYC (at least per the Wikipedia article on the 1928 POTUS election in Illinois, with this citation) and I also imagine that Chicago Italian Americans at times leaned GOP relative to their Irish counterparts, with one of those times in question perhaps being the tenure of Republican William Hale "Big Bill" Thompson - known for his alliance and dealings with Al Capone and company - as Mayor of Chicago.

[Republican Party Stalwart]

I know that the 1960 result is especially peculiar given that JFK himself was Catholic, but one must not forget that Staten Island leaned Republican relative to the rest of New York City long before 1960. 1964 was actually the only Presidential election between 1936 and 1996 in which Staten Island voted for the Democratic candidate, and even in 1964 Barry Goldwater did far better in Staten Island than he did in any of NYC's four other boroughs.

I hypothesize that by 1940, White Catholic voters in Staten Island began to lean GOP relative to White Catholics in the rest of NYC for the same reason why (white) Staten Island residents in general presumably began to lean GOP relative to the rest of NYC by 1940 - and, more broadly, for the same generalized reason why (white) voters in historically politically-mixed or Democratic-leaning rural, suburban, and exurban areas began to lean GOP relative to urban voters by a more profound degree than ever before by 1940.

In the New Deal, the social programs were distributed on a utilitarian, urban areas-first basis, where the biggest beneficiaries were the industrial and cosmopolitan cities of the Northeast, Great Lakes, and West Coast megalopolises. The effects of this were the consolidation of the preexisting Dem strength in these areas, and the conversion of working-class Republican voters (and working-class non-voters) in these areas to the Democratic Party. However, another effect of this aspect of the New Deal was the conversion to the GOP of many non-Southern rural, suburban, and exurban areas which had previously been Democratic-leaning (or even leftist third-party/LaFollette Progressive/Populist/socialist-leaning) before the FDR era. The trend towards the GOP in those areas was simply further solidified by the Democratic takeover of the industrial and cosmopolitan cities (as well as, especially for those areas with a historic anti-war tendency or a large German population, the FDR's administration support of Britain and France during WWII).

Staten Island became Republican as a response to and because of the increasing preeminence of the more urbanized four boroughs of NYC as the most favored and most central region of the state Democratic Party - and National Democratic Party - and as the region with the most outsized influence over statewide politics (NYC minus Staten Island had been all of those things before the New Deal, but became even more so - and in a different way - during and after the New Deal Era than before), and even more importantly, because of the four other boroughs' transition from Democratic-leaning territory to overwhelmingly Democratic territory.

[ReaganLimbaugh]

They had money and they didn't want the Federal Government taking it away from them.

[Vice President Christian Man]

I'm not sure how important this is, but in addition to the above, Italians seem to have been more likely to be Republicans (than the Irish) in places like New York or Massachusetts. Recall Fiorello LaGuardia and John Volpe.

I think that people including LaGuardia and Marcantonio weren't Republican's ideologically, but aligned with them because they were against Tammany Hall's corruption.