United States presidential election in Texas, 1964
The 1964 United States presidential election in Texas was held on November 3, 1964 as part of the United States presidential election of 1964. The Democratic Party candidate, incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson, comfortably won his home state of Texas with 63.32% of the vote against the Republican Party candidate, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who won 36.5%, giving him the state's 25 electoral votes and a victory margin of 26.8%.[1] President Lyndon B. Johnson won the 1964 election in a massive landslide, carrying 44 states plus the District of Columbia, which participated for the first time. Goldwater only carried his home state of Arizona along with 5 Deep South states which had been historically Democratic, but defected to the Republican Party due to the Democratic Party's support for civil rights.
Analysis
The home state of President Lyndon B. Johnson, Texas was his 19th best state in the election and his 2nd best in the South below Kentucky. Johnson won every region in the state by wide margins, including those which had begun trending Republican in recent presidential elections such as the Texas Panhandle, the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, and Metro Houston. Every major city in the state voted for Johnson, including every mid-sized city with the exceptions of Odessa, Midland, Tyler, and Longview, which were won by Goldwater.
Two counties in the Panhandle, Ochiltree and Roberts, gave Goldwater over 60% of the vote, further reflecting this region's trend towards the Republican Party. In the Texas Hill Country, Gillespie County voted Democrat for the first time since Franklin D. Roosevelt's landslide in the 1932 election, given that it was also Johnson's home county.[2] This is the only presidential election between 1952 and 2008 that Dallas and Harris counties voted for the Democratic candidate. Dallas in particular, likely swung towards Johnson due to the city still in mourning from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which had occurred less than a year before the election.
President Johnson carried 238 out of the state's 254 counties, and all 23 congressional districts. The 1964 election marks the last time a Democratic candidate for president won Texas with over 60% of the vote, along with being the last one a Democrat won the state with a double digit margin.
Results
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