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| Turnout | 87.69%[1] ( 4.04%) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 County results Municipality results
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The1964 United States presidential election in Massachusetts took place on November 3, 1964, as part of the1964 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all 50 states andD.C. Voters chose 14 representatives, or electors to theElectoral College, who voted forpresident andvice president.
Massachusetts voted overwhelmingly for theDemocratic nominee, incumbentPresidentLyndon B. Johnson ofTexas, over theRepublican nominee,SenatorBarry Goldwater ofArizona. Johnson ran with SenatorHubert H. Humphrey ofMinnesota, while Goldwater's running mate wasCongressmanWilliam E. Miller ofNew York.
Johnson carried Massachusetts in a landslide, taking 76.19% of the vote to Goldwater's 23.44%, a Democratic victory margin of 52.75%. This made it the third-most Democratic state in the nation, afterRhode Island andHawaii, and remains the strongest-ever Democratic showing in Massachusetts.[2] Even in the midst of the nationwide Democratic landslide of that year, Massachusetts still weighed in as 30% more Democratic than the national average.[2]
Massachusetts had been a Democratic-leaning state since1928, but had voted Republican as recently as1956, whenDwight Eisenhower won the state by 19 points. In1960, Massachusetts nativeJohn F. Kennedy had carried the state with 60.22% of the vote, which up to that point was the strongest-ever Democratic showing in Massachusetts, but this record was quickly overtaken by Johnson in 1964.
The staunchconservative Barry Goldwater was widely seen in theliberalNortheastern United States as a right-wing extremist;[3] he had voted against theCivil Rights Act of 1964, and the Johnson campaign portrayed him as a warmonger who as president would provoke a nuclear war.[4] Thus, Goldwater performed especially weakly in liberal Northeastern states such as Massachusetts. Not only did Johnson win every Northeastern state—the first time that a Democratic presidential candidate had done so—but he won all of them with over 60% of the vote.
While Kennedy had won 60% in Massachusetts in 1960 mostly by garnering the ethnicCatholic vote, in 1964 the traditional Democratic coalition was joined by a mass defection of moderate Yankee Republicans who had voted for Eisenhower andNixon but could not support Goldwater.[3] Consequently, the incumbent Johnson was able to sweep the state—and indeed Goldwater wrote off this state and neighboring Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New York, as well as New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan, from the beginning of his presidential campaign, prior toKennedy's assassination.[5]
| 1964 United States presidential election in Massachusetts[6] | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | Percentage | Electoral votes | |
| Democratic | Lyndon B. Johnson (incumbent) | 1,786,422 | 76.19% | 14 | |
| Republican | Barry Goldwater | 549,727 | 23.44% | 0 | |
| Socialist Labor | Eric Hass | 4,755 | 0.20% | 0 | |
| Prohibition | E. Harold Munn | 3,735 | 0.16% | 0 | |
| Write-ins | Write-ins | 159 | 0.01% | 0 | |
| Totals | 2,344,798 | 100.00% | 14 | ||
| Voter Turnout (Voting age/Registered) | 70%/87% | ||||
| County | Lyndon B. Johnson Democratic | Barry Goldwater Republican | Various candidates Other parties | Margin | Total votes cast | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | ||
| Barnstable | 20,101 | 56.85% | 15,133 | 42.80% | 121 | 0.34% | 4,968 | 14.05% | 35,355 |
| Berkshire | 48,839 | 75.92% | 15,160 | 23.57% | 332 | 0.52% | 33,679 | 52.35% | 64,331 |
| Bristol | 146,885 | 78.70% | 39,230 | 21.02% | 521 | 0.28% | 107,655 | 57.68% | 186,636 |
| Dukes | 2,187 | 68.05% | 1,015 | 31.58% | 12 | 0.37% | 1,172 | 36.47% | 3,214 |
| Essex | 210,135 | 74.27% | 71,653 | 25.32% | 1,157 | 0.41% | 138,482 | 48.95% | 282,945 |
| Franklin | 17,106 | 66.76% | 8,344 | 32.56% | 174 | 0.68% | 8,762 | 34.20% | 25,624 |
| Hampden | 133,085 | 74.67% | 44,299 | 24.86% | 835 | 0.47% | 88,786 | 49.81% | 178,219 |
| Hampshire | 32,058 | 73.45% | 11,385 | 26.09% | 202 | 0.46% | 20,673 | 47.36% | 43,645 |
| Middlesex | 439,790 | 76.25% | 134,729 | 23.36% | 2,291 | 0.40% | 305,061 | 52.89% | 576,810 |
| Nantucket | 1,197 | 66.98% | 587 | 32.85% | 3 | 0.17% | 610 | 34.13% | 1,787 |
| Norfolk | 186,488 | 72.84% | 68,612 | 26.80% | 912 | 0.36% | 117,876 | 46.04% | 256,012 |
| Plymouth | 82,007 | 68.15% | 37,941 | 31.53% | 387 | 0.32% | 44,066 | 36.62% | 120,335 |
| Suffolk | 257,161 | 86.22% | 40,251 | 13.50% | 842 | 0.28% | 216,910 | 72.72% | 298,254 |
| Worcester | 209,383 | 77.08% | 61,388 | 22.60% | 860 | 0.32% | 147,995 | 54.48% | 271,631 |
| Totals | 1,786,422 | 76.19% | 549,727 | 23.44% | 8,649 | 0.37% | 1,236,695 | 52.74% | 2,344,798 |
Johnson swept every county in Massachusetts, the first time a Democratic presidential candidate had done so. This feat would not be repeated until1992 (since which time, Democrats have swept every county in Massachusetts in every modern election).[7] Johnson was the first Democrat ever to winBarnstable County,Dukes County,Franklin County orPlymouth County, and the first to carryNantucket County sinceWoodrow Wilson in1916.[8] InSuffolk County, home to the state's capital and largest city,Boston, Johnson took 86.2% of the vote. Not until2020 would any Massachusetts county again hand a presidential candidate more than 80% of the popular vote (on that occasion, Suffolk County toJoe Biden).
The election of 1964 remains the only one in which a Democratic presidential nominee has broken 70% of the vote in Massachusetts.[2] Johnson's 76.19% remains the highest vote share any presidential candidate of either party has ever received in the state, and his 52.74% margin of victory is the widest margin by which any presidential candidate of either party has ever carried the state.
State and district results of the1964 United States presidential election | ||
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