50 Fun Facts About 1960 United States Presidential Election

What did Richard Nixon famously refuse to wear for the first televised debate of 1960?

Makeup was declined, so Nixon, still underweight after a hospital stay, looked pale and unshaven on screen beside a tanned, rested Kennedy.

Who phoned Richard Nixon straight after the first 1960 debate to ask whether he was ill?

His mother rang at once to ask if he was sick, having watched him sweat under the studio lights in a light gray suit that faded into the backdrop.

Which singer re-recorded his hit High Hopes with new words as John F. Kennedy's 1960 campaign theme?

Frank Sinatra first sang High Hopes in the 1959 film A Hole in the Head, where it won the Oscar for best original song, before reworking it for the campaign trail.

Which Senate majority leader from Texas did John F. Kennedy pick as his running mate in 1960?

Lyndon B. Johnson had been Kennedy's chief rival at the convention, and his place on the ticket helped the Democrats hold Texas and much of the South.

Which civil rights leader's 1960 jailing in Georgia led John F. Kennedy to phone the man's wife?

Martin Luther King Jr. had been arrested at an Atlanta sit-in; Kennedy's calls helped free him, and King's father then endorsed the Democrat.

Which baseball pioneer endorsed Richard Nixon over John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election?

Jackie Robinson backed Nixon after meeting both candidates, against the mood of most African American voters, and later praised Kennedy's stance on civil rights.

Who became the second Catholic elected US president, sixty years after John F. Kennedy's 1960 win?

Joe Biden won in 2020, ending a six-decade gap; in 1960 a Catholic president was contested enough that Kennedy had to promise Protestant ministers his church would not steer him.

What awkward duty fell to Richard Nixon as vice president weeks after he lost the 1960 election?

Certifying his own defeat came with the job: the vice president presides when Congress counts the electoral votes, so Nixon announced Kennedy's 303 to his own 219.

John F. Kennedy was the youngest man elected president, but which predecessor took office younger?

Theodore Roosevelt was 42 when William McKinley's assassination made him president in 1901, so Kennedy holds the record only for winning an election.

Which state's 1960 electoral votes went from Nixon to Kennedy after a recount found a 115-vote lead?

Hawaii, voting for president for the first time, had first been certified for Nixon by 141 votes; both parties' electors met and cast rival ballots while the court fight went on.

Which city hosted the first televised debate between Kennedy and Nixon in September 1960?

Chicago's CBS studio staged it for an audience some put at 70 million viewers, and two months earlier the same city had hosted the Republican convention that nominated Nixon.

Who quipped in 1960 that a week might be needed to recall one Richard Nixon idea worth adopting?

Dwight D. Eisenhower later called it a joke, but the remark undercut his vice president's claim to experience so badly that Democrats turned it into a television commercial.

Which Soviet satellite's 1957 launch fed the fears of falling behind that ran through the 1960 race?

Sputnik was the first man-made satellite to orbit Earth, and its launch led American leaders to warn that the nation trailed communist countries in science and technology.

With which Soviet leader did Richard Nixon spar in the 1959 'Kitchen Debate' in Moscow?

Nikita Khrushchev and Nixon traded impromptu arguments about capitalism and communism beside a model American kitchen at a trade exhibition in the Soviet capital.

Which relative managed John F. Kennedy's 1960 campaign, rounding up delegates at the convention?

His brother Robert secured the last critical delegates for a first-ballot win as campaign manager, then served as attorney general in the new administration.

What did Richard Nixon injure on a car door, costing him two weeks of the 1960 campaign?

His knee became infected after he struck it in North Carolina, putting him in hospital in August and leaving him thin and tired when the debates began.

Which volunteer program did John F. Kennedy propose in a late-night 1960 campus speech in Michigan?

The Peace Corps began as an idea Kennedy put to students at 2 a.m. from the steps of the Michigan Union in Ann Arbor, where a plaque now marks the spot.

After Kennedy met Nixon in 1960, no presidential debates were held until Jimmy Carter faced whom?

Gerald Ford met Carter three times in 1976, ending a sixteen-year gap, after which debates became a regular fixture of presidential campaigns.

A disputed survey found Richard Nixon won the first 1960 debate among people who followed it how?

On the radio, a Sindlinger survey scored it 49 to 21 percent for Nixon, yet the same poll had television viewers almost evenly split, and its sample was never reported.

What name did John F. Kennedy give his agenda when accepting the 1960 Democratic nomination?

The New Frontier, he said, was a set of challenges rather than a set of promises, a deliberate contrast with the New Deal of the 1930s.

Which Cold War alarm did John F. Kennedy sound in 1960, though it proved entirely fictional?

The missile gap, a supposed Soviet lead in nuclear rockets, existed only in exaggerated estimates; the United States in fact held a clear advantage.

Which city hosted the 1960 Democratic convention that nominated John F. Kennedy on the first ballot?

Los Angeles saw Kennedy nominated indoors at the Memorial Sports Arena, but he gave his acceptance speech next door in the open air of the Memorial Coliseum.

Which heavily Protestant state's 1960 primary proved a Catholic like Kennedy could win there?

West Virginia gave Kennedy more than 60 percent of the vote, and his beaten rival withdrew from the race that same night.

Which constitutional change kept the two-term incumbent out of the 1960 presidential election?

The 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, limits presidents to two elected terms, which made the popular incumbent the first one legally unable to run again.

Residents of which place could not vote in the 1960 election but gained electoral votes by 1964?

Washington, D.C. was shut out for the last time in 1960; the 23rd Amendment, sent to the states that June and ratified in 1961, gave the capital a say in choosing presidents.

Which Minnesota senator lost two 1960 primaries to John F. Kennedy and later became vice president?

Hubert Humphrey, short of money, likened fighting the Kennedy family to an independent merchant competing against a chain store, and quit after his second defeat.

Which mayor's machine was accused of padding John F. Kennedy's narrow 1960 margin in Illinois?

Richard J. Daley's Cook County gave Kennedy a 456,000-vote cushion that outweighed Nixon's lead across the rest of Illinois, and every Republican challenge to the count fell short.

With no electoral majority for Kennedy or Nixon in 1960, which body would have chosen the president?

The House would have decided, each state delegation casting a single vote; a shift of under 19,000 votes in Illinois and Missouri would have sent the contest there.

By roughly how many votes did Kennedy lead Nixon in the reported 1960 national popular vote?

About 113,000 votes, a margin of 0.17 percent, separated them, the closest popular-vote result of the 20th century.

Which Republican, unseated as a senator by Kennedy in 1952, was Nixon's running mate in 1960?

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., by then ambassador to the United Nations, was picked for his foreign-policy weight but ran a lethargic campaign that left Nixon furious.

Which Southern senator won 15 electoral votes against Kennedy and Nixon in 1960 without running?

Harry F. Byrd drew the protest votes of segregationist electors who refused to back Kennedy, plus one rogue Republican elector who would not vote for Nixon.

In which Texas city did Kennedy tell ministers in 1960 that his church would not dictate policy?

Houston's ministerial association heard him promise to respect the separation of church and state and ask whether a quarter of Americans were second-class citizens because of their faith.

Where did John F. Kennedy watch the 1960 election returns come in, at his family's seaside compound?

Hyannis Port, on Cape Cod, had been his campaign base; the wait there was a long one, because Nixon did not concede until the following afternoon.

Which state did Kennedy seem to win on election night 1960 before absentee ballots flipped it to Nixon?

California, Nixon's home state, looked like a Kennedy win by 37,000 votes on election night, but a week later the absentee count handed it to Nixon by about 36,000.

Which three-electoral-vote state did Richard Nixon visit on the last weekend of the 1960 campaign?

Alaska was a stop he made only to honor his promise to campaign in all fifty states, while Kennedy spent the same weekend in the big industrial states.

Which Midwestern state backed Richard Nixon in 1960 and did not pick another loser until 2020?

Ohio was Nixon's biggest farm-belt prize in 1960, then sided with the winner in fourteen straight presidential elections before the streak broke.

Which state was carried in 1960 by a slate of unpledged electors rather than by Kennedy or Nixon?

Mississippi's eight unpledged electors beat a rival slate of Kennedy loyalists, the only time a state has been carried that way, and voted for a senator who was not running.

Which 1928 nominee was the only Catholic to head a major-party ticket before John F. Kennedy?

Al Smith lost to Herbert Hoover in a landslide amid open anti-Catholic feeling, a memory that left many Democrats wondering whether prejudice would sink Kennedy too.

Which two-time Democratic nominee made a late bid to stop John F. Kennedy at the 1960 convention?

Adlai Stevenson had the fervent backing of a former first lady, but he declared only in convention week, when the liberal delegates he needed were already pledged.

Which Democratic elder called the 1960 convention rigged for Kennedy and stayed away in protest?

Harry S. Truman backed Stuart Symington of his home state and argued that Kennedy was too youthful and inexperienced to be president.

Which New York governor's 1960 pact with Richard Nixon became known as the Treaty of Fifth Avenue?

Nelson Rockefeller won a fourteen-point compact in a four-hour meeting at his own apartment, a deal that strained Nixon's relations with the party's conservatives.

Which Arizona senator won ten delegate votes against Nixon at the 1960 Republican convention?

Barry Goldwater withdrew his name in a speech urging conservatives to take back the party, and four years later he was its presidential nominee.

Which voters did the Viva Kennedy clubs of the Southwest set out to register for the 1960 election?

Mexican Americans were courted through a network of clubs that registered Latino voters, at a time when poll taxes kept many low-income families from the ballot.

What was unusual about the state map of John F. Kennedy's 1960 win over Richard Nixon?

He carried fewer states than Nixon yet won clearly in the Electoral College, a result not repeated until 1976.

What made the third Kennedy–Nixon debate of 1960 different from the other three?

It linked two cities: Kennedy sat in a New York studio and Nixon on the opposite coast, joined by split-screen so that they could answer each other in real time.

Backers of a convention rival claimed in 1960 that John F. Kennedy had which adrenal disorder?

Addison's disease was the charge, which Kennedy's press secretary denied, while one of his physicians declared that his glands were functioning adequately.

An elector from which state broke his 1960 pledge to Richard Nixon and backed a Southern Democrat?

Oklahoma's Henry D. Irwin wired the other Republican electors urging them to abandon Nixon too; about forty replied, but none followed him.

Which journalist won a Pulitzer Prize for his campaign chronicle The Making of the President 1960?

Theodore H. White wrote it almost like a novel, and its success set off a trend toward personality-driven campaign books that he later came to bemoan.

Which two islands off China's coast became a flashpoint in the 1960 Kennedy–Nixon debates?

Quemoy and Matsu, held by Nationalist forces based in Taiwan, let Nixon accuse Kennedy of weakness after he suggested they lay outside America's defense treaty.

In which early memoir did Richard Nixon explain why he chose not to contest the 1960 result?

Six Crises, his first book, argued that months of recounts would leave the nation without a president and set a poor example for newly democratic countries.