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 County Results Municipality Results
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The1960 United States presidential election in Vermont took place on November 8, 1960, as part of the1960 United States presidential election which was held throughout all 50 states. Voters chose three representatives, or electors to theElectoral College, who voted forpresident andvice president.
Vermont was won by theRepublican nominee, incumbentVice PresidentRichard Nixon ofCalifornia, and his running mate former AmbassadorHenry Cabot Lodge Jr. ofMassachusetts, defeatingDemocraticSenatorJohn F. Kennedy ofMassachusetts and his running mateSenate Majority LeaderLyndon B. Johnson ofTexas.
Nixon took 58.65% of the vote to Kennedy's 41.35%, a margin of 17.30%.
Vermont historically was a bastion ofNortheastern Republicanism, and by 1960 it had gone Republican in every presidential election since the founding of the Republican Party. From1856 to1956, Vermont had had the longest streak of voting Republican of any state, having never voted Democratic before, and this tradition continued in 1960. This election would prove to be the conclusion of a 104-year winning streak, as Vermont would flip to the Democrats for the first time four years later in1964.
As Kennedy won a razor-thin victory over Nixon nationally, Vermont weighed in as about seventeen percent more Republican than the national average, and his 58.65% of the popular vote made Vermont the fourth most Republican state in the nation in the 1960 election afterNebraska,Kansas andOklahoma.[1]
Kennedy, an Irish Catholic Democrat from neighboringMassachusetts, did however improve dramatically on the performance of DemocratAdlai Stevenson in Vermont in1952 and 1956. In both of those years Stevenson had taken less than 30% of the vote against RepublicanDwight Eisenhower, who had received more than 70% of the vote in Vermont and had swept every county in the state.
Nixon won 11 of the 14 counties in Vermont, losing 3 counties in the northwestern part of the state. The three northwestern counties of Vermont (Chittenden,Franklin andGrand Isle) had long been Democratic enclaves in an otherwise Republican state through the 1930s and 1940s, but had gone Republican in the 1950s for Eisenhower. Only the second Roman Catholic to be nominated for president by a major party, Kennedy's appeal to Catholics and ethnic working class voters brought northwestern Vermont back into the Democratic column in 1960. Kennedy won Chittenden County, the most populous county, home to the state's largest city,Burlington. Chittenden County had been the only county in Vermont to flip to the Democrats for the first Roman Catholic nomineeAl Smith in1928. Kennedy also won Franklin and Grand Isle Counties, which had joined Chittenden in voting Democratic forFranklin Roosevelt in1932, even as the rest of the state remained reliably Republican. Thus the split between the northwest and the rest of the state was a familiar result typical ofNew Deal coalition era elections in Vermont.
Richard Nixon would later win Vermont again againstHubert Humphrey in1968 and then again againstGeorge McGovern in1972.
| 1960 United States presidential election in Vermont[2] | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | Percentage | Electoral votes | |
| Republican | Richard Nixon | 98,131 | 58.65% | 3 | |
| Democratic | John F. Kennedy | 69,186 | 41.35% | 0 | |
| No party | Write-ins | 7 | 0.00% | 0 | |
| Totals | 167,324 | 100.00% | 3 | ||
| Voter Turnout (Voting age/Registered) | 72%/81% | ||||
| County | Richard Nixon Republican | John F. Kennedy Democratic | Various candidates Write-ins | Margin | Total votes cast | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | ||
| Addison | 5,520 | 65.03% | 2,969 | 34.97% | 2,551 | 30.06% | 8,489 | ||
| Bennington | 7,099 | 61.19% | 4,502 | 38.80% | 1 | 0.01% | 2,597 | 22.39% | 11,602 |
| Caledonia | 6,688 | 69.69% | 2,909 | 30.31% | 3,779 | 39.38% | 9,597 | ||
| Chittenden | 13,072 | 43.53% | 16,959 | 56.47% | -3,887 | -12.94% | 30,031 | ||
| Essex | 1,439 | 57.51% | 1,063 | 42.49% | 376 | 15.02% | 2,502 | ||
| Franklin | 5,444 | 43.65% | 7,028 | 56.35% | -1,584 | -12.70% | 12,472 | ||
| Grand Isle | 798 | 49.35% | 819 | 50.65% | -21 | -1.30% | 1,617 | ||
| Lamoille | 3,272 | 76.02% | 1,032 | 23.98% | 2,240 | 52.04% | 4,304 | ||
| Orange | 5,363 | 77.23% | 1,581 | 22.77% | 3,782 | 54.46% | 6,944 | ||
| Orleans | 5,027 | 59.98% | 3,354 | 40.02% | 1,673 | 19.96% | 8,381 | ||
| Rutland | 12,166 | 56.82% | 9,246 | 43.18% | 2,920 | 13.64% | 21,412 | ||
| Washington | 10,458 | 59.49% | 7,116 | 40.48% | 4 | 0.02% | 3,342 | 19.01% | 17,578 |
| Windham | 9,128 | 67.69% | 4,358 | 32.31% | 4,770 | 35.38% | 13,486 | ||
| Windsor | 12,657 | 66.94% | 6,250 | 33.05% | 2 | 0.01% | 6,407 | 33.89% | 18,909 |
| Totals | 98,131 | 58.65% | 69,186 | 41.35% | 7 | 0.00% | 28,945 | 17.30% | 167,324 |
State and district results of the1960 United States presidential election | ||
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