The 1964 United States presidential election in Mississippi was held on November 3, 1964, as part of the 1964 United States presidential election, which was held on that day throughout all fifty states and the District of Columbia. Voters chose seven electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
Less than 10% of Mississippi's black population were registered voters.[1] Governor Paul B. Johnson Jr. told Mississippians to disobey the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[2][3] Ultimately, Goldwater won Mississippi with a 74.28 point margin of victory over Johnson, making Mississippi 97% more Republican than the nation and Goldwater the first Republican to win the state since Reconstruction, even outperforming Johnson's 71% margin of victory in the District of Columbia. While Goldwater would suffer a landslide defeat to Johnson in both the national popular vote and Electoral College, his performance in Mississippi was the largest presidential vote share of any Republican presidential nominee ever in any state.[4] Goldwater's victory, alongside Johnson's victory in Rhode Island marked the last time a Presidential nominee won over 80% of the vote in a state.
Over ninety percent of Mississippi's electorate viewed President Johnson as having done a bad job and 96.4 percent opposed the Civil Rights Act, compared to only 54 percent in the antebellum slave states and Oklahoma.[5] 87 percent of Mississippi voters, vis-à-vis 48 percent in the South as a whole, believed that President Johnson was failing at countering domestic Communism.[5] This reflected the widespread belief among Mississippi whites that civil rights activists were funded by communists.[6][7]
Campaign
Neither Governor Johnson nor any other major state or federal politician offered President Johnson any support in his statewide campaign, which was left to inexperienced Greenville lawyer Douglas Wynn.[8] Governor Johnson and four of the state's five Congressmen were silent about supporting Goldwater, though Congressman John Bell Williams supported him openly.[8]
In July, polling suggested Goldwater would receive ninety percent of Mississippi's vote,[9] but this fell to seventy in August[10] and to between sixty and sixty-five in October due to fears that he would abolish the Rural Electrification Administration.[9] By the weekend before election day, University of California political scientist Peter H. Odegard believed that Goldwater would win only Alabama[a] and Mississippi.[11] Mississippi was one of five states that swung more Republican in 1964, alongside Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina.
Goldwater defeated Johnson by a margin comparable to what had been predicted in the earliest polls, and much greater than predicted immediately before the election. Over-representation of urban areas in polling was blamed for this discrepancy.[12] As of the 2024 presidential election, this is the last time that Claiborne, Holmes and Jefferson counties voted for a Republican presidential candidate.[13] Goldwater received 90% of the white vote in the state.[14]
Results
1964 United States presidential election in Mississippi[15]
^Bullock, Charles S. and Gaddie, Ronald Keith; The Triumph of Voting Rights in the South, pp. 31-33 ISBN0806185309
^Crespino, Joseph; In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution, p. 206 ISBN0691122091
^Mitchell, Dennis J.; A New History of Mississippi; p. 453 ISBN1617039764
^Thomas, G. Scott; The Pursuit of the White House: A Handbook of Presidential Election Statistics and History, p. 403 ISBN0313257957
^ abHarris, Louis; 'Mississippi Vote Points Up Power Of Local Emotions: Johnson Job Ratings'; The New York Times, November 23, 1964, p. A2
^Asch, Chris Myers; The Senator and the Sharecropper: The Freedom Struggles of James O. Eastland and Fannie Lou Hamer, p. 190 ISBN0807878057
^McGuire, Danielle L. and Dittmer, John; Freedom Rights: New Perspectives on the Civil Rights Movement, p. 125 ISBN081313448X
^ ab'Mississippi Ousts House Democrat: Goldwater Carries the State by Crushing Plurality'; The New York Times, November 4, 1964, p. 11
^ abMcKee, Don; 'Governors See Barry Slipping In South as Conference Opens: Johnson Gains in Louisiana', The Washington Post, October 13, 1964, p. A@
^Manly, Chesly; 'Goldwater Landslide Seen in Mississippi: Many in Office Believe He'll Poll Seventy Percent'; Chicago Tribune, August 12, 1964, pp. 1, 6
^'Expert Sees Barry Winning Just Ala., Miss.', The Boston Globe, November 1, 1964, p. 51
^Burnham, Walter Dean; 'American Voting Behavior and the 1964 Election', Midwest Journal of Political Science, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Feb., 1968), p. 34
^In Alabama, Goldwater was opposed by a slate of unpledged Democratic electors who would not have voted for President Johnson had they carried the state.
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