1964 United States presidential election in Maine

1964 United States presidential election in Maine

← 1960 November 3, 1964 1968 →
 
Nominee Lyndon B. Johnson Barry Goldwater
Party Democratic Republican
Home state Texas Arizona
Running mate Hubert Humphrey William E. Miller
Electoral vote 4 0
Popular vote 262,264 118,701
Percentage 68.80% 31.14%


President before election

Lyndon Johnson
Democratic

Elected President

Lyndon Johnson
Democratic

The 1964 United States presidential election in Maine took place on November 3, 1964, as part of the 1964 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all fifty states and D.C. Voters chose four representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

Maine was won by incumbent Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas in a landslide over Republican U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. Johnson took 68.8% of the vote to Goldwater's 31.14%, a victory margin of 37.66 percentage points, and the strongest-ever performance by a Democrat in the state. Johnson became the first Democrat since Woodrow Wilson in 1912 to carry this longstanding liberal Republican stronghold, and the first since Franklin Pierce in 1852 to win the state with an outright majority. Even amidst a national Democratic landslide, Maine weighed-in in this election as more than 15 points to the left of the nation at-large.

Johnson carried Maine by a wide margin of 37.66%, making him the first Democratic candidate since Franklin Pierce in 1852 to win a majority (Wilson won the state in 1912 with only a plurality of 39.43%). Johnson was also the first Democrat to sweep all of Maine's counties.[1]

He was the first Democrat to carry Somerset County since Martin Van Buren in 1836,[1] the first since Pierce to carry the counties of Franklin, Oxford, Penobscot and Piscataquis and the first since Winfield S. Hancock in 1880 to carry Aroostook County.[2] Populous Cumberland County, along with Lincoln County, had last voted Democratic for Woodrow Wilson in 1912, while the counties of Hancock, Knox and Waldo had last supported a Democrat when giving Wilson a plurality in 1916.[2]

This would prove the last occasion Waldo County voted for a Democratic presidential candidate until 1996,[a] and last when Hancock, Knox, and Lincoln Counties would support a Democratic presidential nominee until Bill Clinton in 1992. Johnson's 80.14% in Androscoggin County is also the last time, as of 2020, that any candidate has broken 80% in any Maine county, and the first time that a Democrat has done so since 1836.

  1. ^ a b Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, p. 90 ISBN 0786422173
  2. ^ a b Menendez; The Geography of Presidential Elections in America; pp. 218-219


Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).