The 1964 U.S. presidential election was the most lopsided election in U.S. history by popular vote—Democratic candidate Lyndon Johnson crushed his Republican rival, Barry Goldwater, by a margin of 61 percent to 39 percent. While the margins this year probably won’t be as wide, the parallels between 2016 and 1964 should serve as an ominous reminder to the GOP, which finds itself struggling to halt the advance of a controversial political outsider.
The general election candidates in 1964 were an unusual pair—one represented a conventional play by the Democratic Party, while the other was, at the time, a political outsider. Johnson, the sitting president after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, was a fairly moderate Democrat from Texas who had recently signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act into law while also escalating America’s presence in Vietnam. He had served in Congress for 24 years, including six years as Senate Majority leader. Goldwater was an anti-union two-term Senator from Arizona who was so ardently anti-communist that he notably declined to censure Joseph McCarthy.
Johnson rode a relatively smooth path through the Democratic Convention and chose Senator Hubert Humphrey, a solid liberal and civil rights activist, for his running mate. Johnson’s most significant competitor for the nomination was Governor George Wallace of Alabama, a candidate who failed to gain traction in the North due to his racist record as governor.
Goldwater, on the other hand, fought a ferocious battle for the Republican nomination that lasted up until the California primaries. He led a bitter and aggressive primary campaign against Nelson Rockefeller, a moderate Republican and member of the “Eastern Establishment” who was the governor of New York and a party favorite at the time. Boasting reforms in education, civil rights, environmental policy, welfare, and abortion, Rockefeller touted a history of moderate politics that could win him the general election against Johnson. Unfortunately, he never got the chance.
Goldwater ran his primary campaign by unifying stalwart conservatives from different backgrounds across the country, gathering momentum across the Midwest and South. These regions ultimately enabled Goldwater to clinch the nomination. Allegations of a possible extramarital affair reduced Rockefeller’s initial lead and eventually led to him to lose every GOP primary save those in West Virginia and Oregon. A coalition of Goldwater’s former primary rivals and Republican Party officials tried to mount a consolidated opposition to Goldwater by rallying behind Governor William Scranton of Pennsylvania immediately after Rockefeller’s loss in California, but it was too late.
The Republican Convention in Daly City, California was an outright battle between Republican moderates who supported Rockefeller and the far-right wing backing Goldwater. When Rockefeller rose to the stage to speak, Goldwater’s supporters booed him off. Goldwater easily won the nomination in the first round of voting; Scranton and Rockefeller combined did not even receive half the votes Goldwater did. Goldwater immediately proceeded to select Congressman William Miller, an obscure legislator from New York, as his running mate for the sole reason that Miller “drove Johnson nuts”.
Goldwater’s anti-establishment rhetoric, which delighted his most conservative supporters, vilified him in the party’s inner circles. He even went as far as to insult moderate Republicans in his victory speech at the convention, a move that cost him critical support in the general election immediately thereafter. Prominent figures including Rockefeller, President Eisenhower, and George Romney (the father of Mitt Romney) refused to endorse Goldwater. George Romney even refused to stand on the same stage as Goldwater after the convention ended.
When it came to the general election, several of the off-the-cuff and unscripted remarks Goldwater had made in his stump speeches to win the nomination came back to haunt him, especially his extreme and simplistic views on foreign policy and economics. He advocated for “lobbing a nuke into the men’s room of the Kremlin“, argued that “you’ve got to forget about the civilian” when launching bombing campaigns, and said that he “could have made North Vietnam look like a mud puddle” if he were in command during Vietnam.
Barry Goldwater with Lyndon Johnson
Goldwater’s history on civil rights was just as much a liability, as he had voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act and refused to repudiate his vote against the act. The damage that did to his platform metastasized when Goldwater took on the full electorate.
Johnson’s campaign swiftlly put to use the ammunition Goldwater had provided and unleashed a storm of advertisements that showed Goldwater to be a far-right fringe candidate while painting Johnson as a centrist and pragmatic moderate. A tabloid magazine released a poll of psychiatrists that declared Goldwater “mentally unfit” for office. The Johnson Campaign tweaked Goldwater’s campaign slogan—”In your heart, you know he’s right”—to read “In your guts, you know he’s nuts.” Johnson’s camp even aired a “KKK for Goldwater” TV spot as well as the infamous “Daisy” attack ad.
Despite Democratic fears of low voter turnout in the general election, Johnson brought home a sweeping Democratic victory. Goldwater only carried six states, one of which was Alabama, a state that refused to even put Johnson on the ballot on account of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Goldwater failed to achieve over 45 percent support in more than a dozen states. Johnson’s campaign was so successful that it even managed to oust a considerable number of Republican legislators by tying their ideologies Goldwater’s. In the end, Democrats obtained majorities in both the House and Senate. It was a humiliating and crushing defeat for the GOP.
Granted, there are some notable differences between the elections of 1964 and 2016 that deserve recognition. The road to the Democratic nomination has been much rockier for the party favorite this year than it was for Johnson. Hillary Clinton has failed to galvanize the populist wing of her party that Bernie Sanders has. Likewise, Clinton is not an incumbent, and she lacks the landmark legislative record that Johnson could lay claim to. In addition, the economy now is not as prosperous as it was in the 1960s. Economic prosperity tends to lean in favor of the incumbent party.
All the same, the similarities are staggering. The 1960s were a period of uncertainty, with the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War, and the threat of the Soviet Union looming in the American political consciousness. Likewise, the current decade has been filled with fears of a slow economic recovery, radical Islamic terrorism, and China’s growing geopolitical power. In this context, populist outsider Donald Trump has shot to the forefront of a crowded field by making controversial off-script remarks and vocally criticizing party figureheads. This has drawn the ire of party officials who still have failed to rally their allies and the general public as the media paints Trump to be a fascist, racist, and fear-monger.
As the calendar races towards the Republican Convention, it remains to be seen how accurate the parable of 1964 will be. Saturday Night Live has already released a “Racists for Trump” ad, and Democratic insiders hint towards a brutal attack ad blitz that will use Trump’s own statements against him. Current polls, election markets, and election models show Clinton leading by a solid margin against Trump. If the Republican establishment and party moderates can recognize the threat and learn from history, they will alter course before it is too late.
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