The 1960 United States presidential election in Texas was held on November 8, 1960, as part of the 1960 United States presidential election. The Democratic Party candidate John F. Kennedy, narrowly won the state of Texas with 50.52 percent of the vote to the Republican candidate Vice President Richard Nixon's 48.52%, a margin of two percent, giving him the state's 24 electoral votes. Despite the presence of U.S. Senator Lyndon B. Johnson on the Democratic ticket, the result made Texas the tenth closest state in the election. Nixon's strong performance in the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex, Harris County, the Panhandle, and the Hill Country kept the race close.[1]
Nixon himself later commented "we lost Texas...because of that asshole Congressman",[8] referring to Bruce Alger. The only Republican congressman in Texas at the time, Alger had led protestors, many of them well-heeled conservative women, against Johnson's visit to Dallas on November 4. One woman pulled Johnson's wife's gloves out of her hand, and her hat was knocked off by a protestor's placard. Nicknamed the "mink coat mob", the resulting press coverage was a humiliation for Texas Republicans[9][10] and was blamed for damaging the party's electoral results in the South generally at a time when wives were regarded as sacrosanct.[11]
Johnson won in the concurrent senatorial election against Republican nominee John Tower, but Tower won in the special election to fill the vacancy created by Johnson's election to the vice-presidency.[2] This was the first time since 1920 that Texas voted differently than neighboring Oklahoma, and the second of only four such elections overall.
Results
1960 United States presidential election in Texas[1]
^Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 212 ISBN1400852293
^Menendez, Albert J.; The Religious Factor in the 1960 Presidential Election: An Analysis of the Kennedy Victory over Anti-Catholic Prejudice, p. 135 ISBN0786460377
^Phillips; The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 221
^Carty, T.; A Catholic in the White House?: Religion, Politics, and John F. Kennedy's Presidential Campaign, p. 90 ISBN1403981302
^Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, pp. 311–319 ISBN0786422173
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Government