1960 United States presidential election in Hawaii

1960 United States presidential election in Hawaii

November 8, 1960 1964 →
Turnout93.6%[1]
 
Nominee John F. Kennedy Richard Nixon
Party Democratic Republican
Home state Massachusetts California
Running mate Lyndon B. Johnson Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.
Electoral vote 3 0
Popular vote 92,410 92,295
Percentage 50.03% 49.97%


President before election

Dwight Eisenhower
Republican

Elected President

John F. Kennedy
Democratic

The 1960 presidential election in Hawaii was held on November 8, 1960, as part of the 1960 United States presidential election. This was the first presidential election in which Hawaii participated; the state had been admitted to the Union just over a year earlier. The islands favored Senator John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, by a narrow margin of 115 votes, or 0.06%, after a court-ordered recount overturned an initial result favoring Vice President Richard Nixon, a Republican. The result was considered an upset, as Nixon had been thought likely to win the state's electoral votes.[2]

This was one of only two presidential elections since statehood that Hawaii voted more Republican than the national average. The other was 1972, when it voted 0.8% more Republican than the national average. This is also one of only two elections in which Hawaii's counties did not all back the same candidate, the other being 1980, where the winner of each county was of the opposite party as in 1960. Unlike in the 1960 election, Honolulu voting Republican in 1980 was not sufficient to single-handedly carry the state, while all three other counties voted for Jimmy Carter.[3] Even as of 2020, Hawaii's first presidential election remains the closest in the state's history.

  1. ^ Tuttle 1961, p. 331.
  2. ^ Tuttle 1961, p. 331-338.
  3. ^ "Presidential election of 1980 - Map by counties". Geoelections.free.fr. Retrieved September 25, 2021.