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| Elections in New Hampshire |
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The 1960 United States presidential election in New Hampshire took place on November 8, 1960, as part of the 1960 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all 50 states. Voters chose four representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
New Hampshire was won by the Republican nominees, incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon of California, and his running mate Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. of Massachusetts. Nixon and Lodge defeated the Democratic nominees, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts and his running mate Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas.
Nixon took 53.42% of the vote to Kennedy's 46.58%, a margin of 6.84%. Kennedy swept the entire Northeastern United States, with the exception of the three Upper New England states, although Kennedy was much stronger in New Hampshire and the result was much closer than in neighboring Vermont and Maine. Although the statewide result was close, Nixon won seven of the state's counties while Kennedy won three.
Since Franklin Roosevelt won them in 1932, the counties of Hillsborough County, Strafford County, and Coos County had become reliable New Deal Democratic base counties, voting for Roosevelt all four times as well as for Harry S. Truman. The counties had been won back by the GOP when Dwight Eisenhower swept the state in his nationwide landslide of 1956. However, they reverted to the Democratic Party in 1960, allowing Kennedy to take nearly 47% statewide compared to the 34% Adlai Stevenson had received in the state in 1956.
Kennedy's most substantial victory was in heavily populated Hillsborough County, home to Manchester and Nashua, which went to Kennedy by a decisive 58–42 margin. Carroll County had long been the most Republican county in New Hampshire, voting over eighty percent Republican in 1952 and 1956, and in 1960 it would remain Nixon's strongest county in the region, with Nixon taking over 79% of the vote. As Kennedy narrowly edged out Nixon to win the 1960 election nationally, New Hampshire's results would make the state 7% more Republican than the national average. Nixon would later win New Hampshire again in both 1968 and 1972.