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 Gold denotes a state won byDaniel Brewster.Purple denotes a state won byPat Brown.Green denotes a state won byLyndon B. Johnson.Blue denotes a state won byAlbert S. Porter.Orange denotes a state won byJennings Randolph.Brown denotes a state won byJohn W. Reynolds.Pink denotes a state won byMatthew E. Welsh.Black denotes a state won by unpledged delegates.Grey denotes a state that did not hold a primary. | |||||||||||||||||||
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From March 10 to June 2, 1964, voters of theDemocratic Party chose its nominee forpresident in the1964 United States presidential election. Incumbent PresidentLyndon B. Johnson was selected as the nominee through a series ofprimary elections andcaucuses culminating in the1964 Democratic National Convention held from August 24 to August 27, 1964, inAtlantic City,New Jersey.
Johnson becamepresident of the United States upon theassassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, and the goodwill generated by the incident gave him tremendous popularity. In the 1964presidential primaries for theDemocratic Party, Johnson faced no real opposition, yet he insisted until near the time of theDemocratic National Convention that he remained undecided about seeking a full term. Johnson's supporters in the sixteen primary states andWashington, D.C. thus ran write-in campaigns or hadfavorite son candidates run in Johnson's place.
Only two potential candidates threatened Johnson's attempts to unite the party. The first was GovernorGeorge Wallace ofAlabama, who had recently come to prominence with hisStand in the Schoolhouse Door in defiance of the court-ordereddesegregation of theUniversity of Alabama. Wallace appeared on the ballot inWisconsin,Indiana, andMaryland; while he lost all three primaries, he surpassed all expectations, and his performance set the stage for his1968 third-party run. The other potential contender was Attorney GeneralRobert F. Kennedy, who polls showed was a heavy favorite to be Johnson's running mate. Johnson and Kennedy disliked one another intensely, and although Johnson worried he might need Kennedy to defeat a moderateRepublican ticket, he ultimately announced that none of his cabinet members would be selected as his running mate.
As the 1964 nomination was considered a foregone conclusion, the primaries received little press attention outside of Wallace's entry into the race. Despite threats of an independent run in thegeneral election, Wallace withdrew his candidacy in the summer of 1964 because of a lack of support. Johnson announcedHubert Humphrey as his vice-presidential choice at the1964 Democratic Convention and went on to win a landslide election against Goldwater in November.
The goodwill generated by the assassination of Kennedy incident gave Johnson tremendous popularity. He enjoyed strong support against the bitterly divided Republicans; polls in January 1964 showed him leading Republican challengersBarry Goldwater 75% to 20% andNelson Rockefeller 74% to 17%.[1] However, Wallace had received over 100,000 letters and telegrams of support, nearly half from non-southerners, following his 1963Stand in the Schoolhouse Door in defiance of a court order tointegrate the University of Alabama, and he subsequently became "Tennyson's Mordred, exposing the dark side ofCamelot".[2] He began a national speaking tour with a well-received lecture atHarvard on November 7, 1963, bringing him additional notoriety as he flirted with the idea of a national campaign. Wallace's charm and candor won over many of his critics; during a question and answer session at Harvard, a black man asserted his intention to run for president, to which Wallace smiled and responded, "Between you and me both, we might get rid of that crowd in Washington. We might even run on the same ticket."[3] Meanwhile, Johnson forbade discussion of politics in the White House and refused to comment on whether he would run in the 1964 election, instead pursuing the late Kennedy's legislative agenda (most notably theCivil Rights Act of 1964), managing theVietnam War, and declaring his own "war on poverty".[4]
Despite condemnation from media outlets — in 1965, when reporter Theodore H. White publishedThe Making of the President, 1964, he referred to Wallace as a "narrow-minded, grotesquely provincial man"[5] — Wallace's opposition to the Civil Rights Act, which he based uponstates' rights, represented what pundits and analysts began referring to asbacklash, specificallywhite backlash.[6] Coined in summer 1963 to refer to the possibility that white workers, when forced to compete with their black colleagues in a shrinking job market, might "lash back", backlash came to be associated with whites' ability to do so in the voting booth in the face of racial tension, as they had done with the repeal of theRumford Fair Housing Act in California. A series ofriots over civil rights in cities throughout the U.S., notably inCambridge, Maryland, and theBlack Power movement further heightened the tension on which Wallace was able to capitalize.[7] Wallace's connection with the alienated workingman would later manifest itself in the concept of the so-called "silent majority".[8]
| Date | State(s) |
|---|---|
| March 10 | New Hampshire |
| April 7 | Wisconsin |
| April 14 | Illinois |
| April 21 | New Jersey |
| April 28 | Massachusetts |
| May 2 | Texas1 |
| May 5 | District of Columbia, Indiana, Ohio |
| May 12 | Nebraska, West Virginia |
| May 15 | Oregon |
| May 19 | Maryland |
| May 26 | Florida |
| June 2 | California, North Dakota |
| 1 No primary was authorized on the Democratic side; the Republicans held their primary as scheduled.[9] | |
At the time, the transition from traditional party conventions to the modernpresidential primary was still in progress, and only sixteen states and theDistrict of Columbia held primaries for the 1964 election. Despite Johnson's very real doubts about running, his candidacy was never in question to the general public.[10] Indeed, in several states, "unpledged delegates" was the only option on the ballot for the Democratic primary.[9] Amid a Republican Party thatstruggled to find a candidate and the protests of African Americans over civil rights, the Democratic primaries received relatively scant national attention outside Wallace's entry into the race.[11]
Although Johnson faced no real opposition for the Democratic nomination, a plan had been hatched by a number of southerners to runfavorite son candidates in the general election in an attempt to send theElectoral College vote to theHouse of Representatives under theTwelfth Amendment. One of the two major parties would then be forced to make concessions, particularly on the issue of civil rights. This plan never materialized, but on May 5, 1964, voters in Alabama voted by a five-to-one margin for a slate of unpledged electors controlled by Wallace, which prevented Johnson's name from appearing on the ballot in the general election.[12] A similar slate of unpledged electors appeared on the ballot alongside Johnson andBarry Goldwater, the eventual Republican nominee, inMississippi; Goldwater won both states in the general election.[13] Wallace'sthird-party run in 1968 would have a similar premise, aiming not to win but to force one of the two major parties to make concessions, and nearly succeeded in throwing the election.[14]
Johnson faced pressure from some within the Democratic Party to nameRobert F. Kennedy, the late President Kennedy's younger brother and the U.S. Attorney General, as his vice-presidential choice, which Johnson staffers referred to internally as the "Bobby problem".[15] Kennedy and Johnson had disliked one another since the1960 Democratic National Convention, where Kennedy tried to prevent Johnson from becoming his brother's running mate; moreover, Johnson wished to form his own legacy rather than being perceived as a "lame duck". Although Johnson confided to aides on several occasions that he might be forced to accept Kennedy in order to secure a victory over a moderate Republican ticket such as Governor of New YorkNelson Rockefeller and the popular Ambassador to South VietnamHenry Cabot Lodge Jr., Kennedy supporters attempted to force the issue by running adraft movement during the write-inNew Hampshire primary. This movement gained momentum after GovernorJohn W. King's endorsement and infuriated Johnson. Kennedy received 25,094 votes for vice president in New Hampshire, far surpassingHubert Humphrey, the next highest name and eventual nominee.[16]
The potential need for a Johnson–Kennedy ticket was ultimately eliminated by the Republican nomination of conservativeBarry Goldwater. With Goldwater as his opponent, Johnson's choice of vice president was all but irrelevant; opinion polls had revealed that, while Kennedy was an overwhelming first choice among Democrats, any choice made less than a 2% difference in a general election that already promised to be a landslide. When attempts to ease Kennedy out of the running failed, Johnson searched for a way to eliminate him with minimal party discord, and eventually announced that none of his cabinet members would be considered for the position. Kennedy instead mounted a successful run forUnited States Senate in New York.[17]
Wallace had hinted at a possible run numerous times, telling one reporter, "If I ran outside the South and got 10%, it would be a victory. It would shake their eyeteeth in Washington."[18] However, when Milwaukee publicist Lloyd Herbstreith and his wife Dolores attended a Wallace speech at theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison on February 19, 1964, they were reportedly so moved that they began a drive to place Wallace's name on the ballot in the April 7 primary, a relatively simple procedure requiring a qualified slate of sixty electors to represent the state's congressional districts and at-large votes. When Johnson's surrogate, GovernorJohn W. Reynolds, was asked about the prospect of a Wallace run, he jocularly deferred all questions to Dolores Herbstreith, which gave the Herbstreiths newfound publicity and easily allowed them to beat the March 6 filing deadline.[19] On the day of the deadline, Wallace returned to Wisconsin to announce his candidacy, the Confederate flags and "Stand Up For Alabama" slogan on his airplane were replaced with American flags and "Stand Up For America".[20]
Reynolds continued to dismiss Wallace's candidacy, which was denounced by media outlets, clergy, trade unions such as theAFL–CIO, and even Wallace's own party. According to J. Louis Hanson, chair of the state Democratic Party, "Given the state election laws in Wisconsin, any kook—and I consider him a kook—can cause trouble. This man is being supported by extreme right-wing elements who are probably kookier than he is."[21] In an attempt to drum up support for his own cause, Reynolds told a group of supporters at one point that it would be a catastrophe if Wallace received 100,000 votes. Wallace went on to receive 266,000 votes, or one-third of the 780,000 Democratic votes cast, and would later observe that "there must have been three catastrophes in Wisconsin."[22]
Wallace's strong showing was due in part to his appeal to ethnic neighborhoods made up of immigrants from countries such asPoland,Czechoslovakia,Hungary andYugoslavia. Despite initial apprehension about campaigning in these communities, Wallace biographer Stephen Lesher credits him with recognizing that they were "powerfully attracted to the message that the civil rights bill might adversely affect their jobs, their property values, the makeup of their neighborhoods, and children's schools".[23] Others note that Wallace'santi-Communist message resonated with communities whose home countries were behind theIron Curtain of theSoviet Union, and a series of blunders by the Reynolds campaign added to an existing resentment of Reynolds' tax policies and a recently passed housing law.[24] "What Reynolds and most commentators would miss," Lesher writes, was that Dolores Herbstreith, who had never participated in politics until she became thede facto Wallace campaign chair in the state, was "neither a racist nor a crazy ... less interested in race and the Communist menace than in sowing conservative seeds that began sprouting with Barry Goldwater later that year and flowered withRonald Reagan inthe 1980s."[25]
Wallace next appeared on the ballot inIndiana, which had a long history ofKu Klux Klan activity, against GovernorMatthew E. Welsh, who was running specifically so that Wallace would not be unopposed.[27] Welsh considered Wallace a formidable opponent and took no chances, manipulating party machinery and arranging for a photograph of himself shaking hands with President Johnson; meanwhile, the Democratic State Committee began a $75,000 advertising campaign on his behalf.[28] Welshstumped across the state touting his civil rights credentials and denigrating Wallace. His slogan was "Clear the way for LBJ, vote Welsh the fifth of May."[29] He also benefited from the fact that Indiana at the time had a unique type ofclosed primary which technically allowed Republicans to vote for Wallace but required them to sign anaffidavit that they would vote for the Democrat in the general election.[30]
As Wallace excoriated what he called "sweeping federal encroachment" on the gradual process of desegregation, described the Civil Rights Act as a "back-door open-occupancy bill", and appeared alongside a popular Catholic bishop in support of a constitutional amendment to allowschool prayer, tension continued to mount. SenatorTed Kennedy made a stop in the state to denounce him, and both of Indiana's Democratic senators campaigned against him. At a speaking engagement at theUniversity of Notre Dame, Wallace was interrupted when nearly 500 of the 5,000-member audience began heckling him while protesters outside sang the civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome".[31] During the campaign, Welsh took part in a Civil War Centennial Tour wherein he visited the capitals of each of the southern states, except Alabama, and held official ceremonies to return theConfederate battle flags captured byHoosier soldiers during theAmerican Civil War. Wallace refused to hold such a ceremony and Alabama's captured battle flags still remain on display in theIndiana World War Memorial.[32]
Wallace received nearly 30% of the vote, below some expectations but nonetheless startling given the level of opposition.[12][33] The total was 376,023 to 172,646 votes — Wallace's worst showing in any state.[34]
In an article inThe British Journal of Sociology, Michael Rogin observed a heavy correlation between significantAfrican American populations and white support for Wallace, similar to patterns that had long been observed in theSouthern United States. He found a belt running through the northern part of the state nearGary (at the time, Indiana's African-American population made up 6% of the state, compared to 45-50% in Gary[28]), where Wallace consistently received overwhelming support across class lines from whites. A notable exception was theJewish vote.[35] He also found aBible Belt of moderate-sized cities running through central Indiana where, despite a negligible black population, Wallace similarly dominated theFundamentalist Christian white vote.[36]
Racially polarized Maryland was Wallace's best showing. There the Johnson supporters struggled to find a suitable candidate after GovernorJ. Millard Tawes stepped aside for fear that his past support of civil rights and a recent increase in the stateincome tax would compromise his candidacy. Junior SenatorDaniel Brewster stepped in at the last minute at Johnson's request.[37] Once again, religious and labor leaders (in the latter case, the AFL-CIO again found itself at odds with many of its members[38]), the press, and evenMilton Eisenhower, brother of former PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower, lined up against Wallace, and a number of popular senators, includingEdward M. Kennedy,Birch Bayh,Frank Church,Daniel Inouye, andAbraham Ribicoff, and popular former Baltimore MayorThomas D'Alesandro, Jr. who was the father of futureSpeaker of the HouseNancy Pelosi and then-City Council PresidentThomas D'Alesandro III who went onto become Mayor as well in 1967 and campaigned himself in theItalian wards ofBaltimore on Brewster's behalf.[39]
Although race played a significant factor in Wallace's support elsewhere,[7] his strength in Maryland came from the galvanizedEastern Shore, where some estimates put his support among whites as high as 90%. Riots inCambridge had erupted over the repeal of an equal access law, and as the rioters clashed with the National Guard, civil rights leaderGloria Richardson led peaceful demonstrations against the measure.[40] At the behest of aid Bill Jones, Wallace reluctantly kept a speaking engagement in Cambridge, where he was confronted by some 500 black protesters. When a baby was thought to have died from thetear gas used by police, it seemed apublic relations disaster to the Wallace campaign, but thecoroner's report concluded the baby had died of a congenital heart defect. Opponents nonetheless attempted to use the incident and the neo-NaziNational States' Rights Party's description of Wallace as the "last chance for the white voter" against him, but Wallace continued to gain momentum, andThe Baltimore Sun observed the distinct possibility that he would win the state.[38][39]
With voter turnout up by 40%, nearly 500,000 votes were cast, of which Brewster received 53% to Wallace's 43%. Wallace, who won outright among white voters, reportedly said, "If it hadn't been for the niggerbloc vote, we'd have won it all."[41] Indeed, Wallace won 15 of Maryland's 23 counties, and only a combination of double the usual African-American turnout and liberal votes fromMontgomery andPrince George's Counties prevented a Wallace victory.[41]
The following political leaders were candidates for the 1964 Democratic presidential nomination:
| Candidate | Most recent office | Home state | Campaign Withdrawal date | Popular vote | Contests won | Running mate | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lyndon B. Johnson |  | President of the United States (1963–1969) |  Texas |  (Campaign) Secured nomination:August 27, 1964 | 1,106,999 (17.8%) | 9 | Hubert Humphrey |  | |
These candidates participated in multiple state primaries or were included in multiple major national polls.
| Candidate | Most recent office | Home state | Campaign Withdrawal date | Popular vote | Contests won | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| George Wallace | _(3x4).jpg) | Governor ofAlabama (1963–1967, 1971–1979, 1983–1987) |  Alabama | (Campaign) | 672,984 (10.8%) | 0 | |
| State | Lyndon Johnson (including surrogates) | Robert F. Kennedy | George Wallace | Unpledged | Others | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 10 | New Hampshire | 95.26% | 1.58% | 3.16% | ||
| April 7 | Wisconsin | 66.25% | 33.75% | |||
| April 14 | Illinois | 91.63% | 3.23% | 4.20% | 0.94% | |
| April 21 | New Jersey | 82.30% | 8.31% | 9.39% | ||
| April 28 | Massachusetts | 72.91% | 18.96% | 0.68% | 7.45% | |
| Pennsylvania | 82.77% | 4.75% | 4.78% | 7.67% | ||
| May 5 | Indiana | 64.94% | 29.82% | |||
| Ohio | 100.00% | |||||
| Washington, D.C. | 100.00% | |||||
| May 12 | Nebraska | 89.30% | 1.74% | 8.96% | ||
| West Virginia | 100.00% | |||||
| May 15 | Oregon | 99.50% | 0.50% | |||
| May 19 | Maryland | 53.14% | 42.75% | 4.11% | ||
| May 26 | Florida | 100.00% | ||||
| June 2 | California | 100.00% | ||||
| North Dakota | 100.00% |
Candidates:
Johnson surrogates:
Write-ins:
In the state of California, two slates of unpledged delegates appeared on the ballot. The slate controlled byPat Brown received 1,693,813 votes (68%), while the slate controlled bySam Yorty received 798,431 votes (32%). In West Virginia, whereJennings Randolph campaigned on Johnson's behalf, the only option on the ballot was "unpledged delegates at large", which received 131,432 votes (100%). South Dakota and the District of Columbia similarly had unpledged delegates as the only option. Wallace notably received 12,104 votes in Pennsylvania and 3,751 votes in Illinois despite visiting neither state, although Kennedy received a comparable portion of the vote in both states.[9][42]
With Robert F. Kennedy out of the way, the question of Johnson's choice of running mate provided some suspense for an otherwise uneventful convention.[43] However, Johnson also became concerned that Kennedy might use a scheduled speech at the 1964 Democratic Convention to create a groundswell of emotion among the delegates to nominate him as Johnson's running mate; Johnson prevented this by scheduling Kennedy's speech on the last day of the convention, by which time the vice-presidential nomination would have been made. Shortly after the convention, Kennedy decided to leave Johnson's cabinet and run for the U.S. Senate inNew York, where he won the general election in November. Johnson chose SenatorHubert Humphrey ofMinnesota, a liberal and civil rights activist, as his running mate.[44]
Meanwhile, the Republicans had nominated the conservative Goldwater, who shared Wallace's opposition to the Civil Rights Act on the basis of states' rights and found considerable support among southerners. This caused a precipitous drop in support for Wallace's threatened general election campaign, and on June 18, Wallace biographer Dan T. Carter notes that Goldwater gave "a brief speech which — in substance if not tone — could have been written by George Wallace."[45] By July 13, Gallup polls showed that Wallace support in a general election match-up had plummeted to below 3% outside the south. Even in the south, he polled third in a three-way race against Johnson and Goldwater. Goldwater reportedly welcomed Wallace's support but firmly refused him a spot as vice-presidential candidate.[46] With a conservative already facing off against Johnson, Wallace stayed his nascent plans for a third-party run until the 1968 election, ending his campaign with an appearance onFace the Nation on July 19; however, he did not endorse Goldwater.[47] In the general election, Goldwater repudiated Wallace and denied courting his vote, which Wallace took as a personal insult.[46]
Despite his insistence that he remained undecided about running, Johnson had meticulously planned the convention to ensure it went smoothly. Aside from a minor controversy over the Mississippi delegation (seeMississippi Freedom Democratic Party), the convention went as planned; in keeping withthe speech he gave after Kennedy's assassination, Johnson chose "Let Us Continue" as the motto, and the theme song was a take on "Hello Dolly!" sung byCarol Channing entitled "Hello, Lyndon!" GovernorsPat Brown of California andJohn Connally of Texas formally nominated Johnson.[48]
Johnson went on to win the general election in a landslide, only losing theDeep South states ofLouisiana,Alabama,Mississippi,Georgia, andSouth Carolina, as well as Goldwater's home state ofArizona.[49]
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