1960 United States presidential election in Illinois: Difference between revisions

1960 United States presidential election in Illinois
Turnout	86.51%
Kennedy 50-60% 60-70%	Nixon 40-50% 50-60% 60-70% 70-80%
President before election; Dwight D. Eisenhower; Republican	Elected President ; John F. Kennedy; Democratic

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The 1960 United States presidential election in Illinois took place on November 8, 1960, as part of the 1960 United States presidential election. State voters chose 27^[2] representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

In the nation's second-closest race following Hawaii, Illinois was won by Senator John F. Kennedy (D–Massachusetts), running with Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, with 49.98% of the popular vote against incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon (R–California), running with former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., with 49.80% of the popular vote, a margin of victory of only 0.18%.^[3]^[4] As of 2020 this is the last time that a Democrat would win Illinois by only a single digit margin of victory.

Primaries

Turnout

Turnout in the state-run primary elections (Democratic and Republican) was 16.43% with a total of 836,458 votes cast.^[5]^[6]

Turnout during the general election was 86.51%, with 4,757,409 votes cast.^[6]^[7] Both major parties held non-binding state-run preferential primaries on April 12.^[5]^[8]

Democratic

The 1960 Illinois Democratic presidential primary was held on April 12, 1960, in the U.S. state of Illinois as one of the Democratic Party's state primaries ahead of the 1960 presidential election.

The popular vote was a non-binding "beauty contest".^[9] Delegates were instead elected by direct votes by congressional district on delegate candidates.^[8]^[10]

All candidates were write-ins. Kennedy ran a write-in campaign, and no candidate actively ran against him in Illinois.^[9]

Not all of the vote-getters had been declared candidates. Johnson, Stevenson, and Symington had all sat out the primaries.

Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley, head of the Cook County Democratic Party, promised to deliver Kennedy the support of Cook County's delegates, so long as Kennedy won competitive primaries in other states.^[9]

1960 Illinois Democratic presidential primary^[5]^[8]^[11]
Candidate	Votes	Percentage
John F. Kennedy (write-in)	34,332	64.57%
Adlai Stevenson (write-in)	8,029	15.10%
Stuart Symington (write-in)	5,744	10.80%
Hubert Humphrey (write-in)	4,283	8.06%
Lyndon B. Johnson (write-in)	442	0.83%
Others	337	0.63%
Totals	53,167	100.00%

Republican

The 1960 Illinois Republican presidential primary was held on April 12, 1960, in the U.S. state of Illinois as one of the Republican Party's state primaries ahead of the 1960 presidential election.

The preference vote was a "beauty contest". Delegates were instead selected by direct-vote in each congressional district on delegate candidates.^[8]^[10]

Nixon ran unopposed in the primary.

1960 Illinois Republican presidential primary^[5]^[8]^[11]
Party		Candidate	Votes	Percentage
	Republican	Richard Nixon	782,849	99.94%
	Write-in	Others	442	0.1%
Totals			783,291	100.00%

Analysis

Some, including Republican legislators and journalists, believed that Kennedy benefited from vote fraud from Mayor Richard J. Daley's powerful Chicago political machine.^[12]

Daley's machine was known for "delivering whopping Democratic tallies by fair means and foul."^[13] Republicans tried and failed to overturn the results at the time—as well as in ten other states.^[13] Some journalists also later claimed that mobster Sam Giancana and his Chicago crime syndicate "played a role" in Kennedy's victory.^[13] Nixon's campaign staff urged him to pursue recounts and challenge the validity of Kennedy's victory, but Nixon gave a speech three days after the election that he would not contest the election.^[14]

A myth arose that Daley held back much of the Chicago vote until the late morning hours of November 9. However, when the Republican Chicago Tribune went to press, 79% of Cook County precincts had reported, compared to just 62% of Illinois's precincts overall. Moreover, Nixon never led in Illinois, and Kennedy's lead merely shrank as election night went on.^[15] Earl Mazo, a reporter for the pro-Nixon New York Herald Tribune and his biographer, investigated the voting in Chicago and "claimed to have discovered sufficient evidence of vote fraud to prove that the state was stolen for Kennedy."^[12]

A special prosecutor assigned to the case brought charges against 650 people, who were acquitted by a judge who was considered a "Daley machine loyalist."^[14]^[13] Three Chicago election workers were convicted of voter fraud in 1962 and served short terms in jail.^[14] Mazo, the Herald-Tribune reporter, later said that he "found names of the dead who had voted in Chicago, along with 56 people from one house."^[14] He found cases of Republican voter fraud in southern Illinois but said that the totals "did not match the Chicago fraud he found."^[14]

An academic study in 1985^[16] later analyzed the ballots of two disputed precincts in Chicago which were subject to a recount. It found that while there was a pattern of miscounting votes to the advantage of Democratic candidates, Nixon suffered less than Republicans in other races, and the extrapolated error would have reduced his Illinois margin only from 8,858 votes, the final official total, to just under 8,000. It concluded there was insufficient evidence that he had been cheated out of winning Illinois.

Even if enough legitimate systemic fraud was discovered in Illinois to give Nixon the state, that alone would not have been enough to win him the presidency. Kennedy would've still been left with 276 electoral votes, seven more than what he needed to win the White House.

Recount

Ben Adamowski, a Republican who lost reelection as Cook County State's Attorney to Democratic nominee Daniel P. Ward, requested a recount of the state's attorney race. Republicans sought to use this recount, as they could not order a recount of the presidential results, to prove that fraud had been committed in the presidential election. Sidney Holzman, the chair of the Board of Election Commissioners, stated that only the three BEC members could handle the ballots and would only recount the ballots for the state's attorney election. Judge Thaddeus Adesko ruled that twenty-five teams of counters had to be used and that the other elections would be included in the recount.^[17]

The recount was finished on December 9, and showed that in six towns around Chicago mistakes of ten votes or more in favor of Kennedy occurred in 3.1% of the precincts, those in favor of Nixon occurred in 2.6%, and those in favor of third-parties occurred in 4.8%. 11% of the precincts in Chicago had errors of ten votes of more in Kennedy's favor and 8.6% in Nixon's favor. Kennedy's vote was overcounted in 38% of Chicago's precincts while Nixon's vote was overcounted in 40%. Nixon's total was increased by 926 votes.^[18]

Republicans accused the election commission of manipulating the recount and Adamowski successfully sued for another recount in 1961, although only his election was recounted. The original recount increased his vote total by 9.073 while the second one increased his total by 12.694 per precinct.^[19]

Results

1960 United States presidential election in Illinois^[7]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Democratic	John F. Kennedy	2,377,846	49.98%
	Republican	Richard Nixon	2,368,988	49.80%
	Socialist Labor	Eric Hass	10,560	0.22%
	Write-in		15	0.00%
Total votes			4,757,409	100%

Results by county

John Fitzgerald Kennedy Democratic
#
14,827
4,477
2,856
2,605
1,849
7,786
1,608
3,097
3,692
17,115
10,207
3,949
3,394
6,188
8,629
1,378,343
4,245
2,475
6,783
3,607
3,532
44,263
5,024
1,446
5,676
4,907
2,698
11,368
10,194
2,386
3,847
4,276
2,639
4,947
1,465
1,697
10,372
5,821
8,527
3,027
7,784
4,087
4,293
1,413
31,279
17,115
2,242
11,889
46,941
27,532
3,667
5,896
6,642
5,691
26,029
13,120
54,787
9,116
2,981
3,824
2,644
4,520
12,659
13,971
2,068
3,476
3,398
8,815
7,259
3,079
4,792
39,061
4,958
2,889
5,461
971
2,322
1,160
7,344
3,015
33,812
6,835
35,793
2,115
1,543
5,720
67,367
1,383
8,055
20,521
4,321
19,702
3,013
3,835
3,093
3,954
4,756
9,112
41,056
11,335
40,090
4,401
2,377,846

References

^ "United States Presidential election of 1960 - Encyclopædia Britannica". Retrieved June 8, 2017.
^ "1960 Election for the Forty-Fourth Term (1961-65)". Retrieved June 8, 2017.
^ "1960 Presidential General Election Results - Illinois". Retrieved June 8, 2017.
^ "The American Presidency Project - Election of 1960". Retrieved June 8, 2017.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Illinois Blue Book 1959-1960. Illinois Secretary of State. p. 871. Retrieved March 31, 2020. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
^ ^a ^b "OFFICIAL VOTE Cast at the GENERAL ELECTION NOVEMBER 4, 1986" (PDF). www.elections.il.gov. Illinois State Board of Elections. Retrieved April 10, 2020.^{[permanent dead link]}
^ ^a ^b Illinois Blue Book 1961-1962. Illinois Secretary of State. p. 963. Retrieved March 31, 2020. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "OFFICIAL VOTE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS Cast at the GENERAL ELECTION, NOVEMBER 8, 1960 JUDICIAL ELECTION 1959-1960 • PRIMARY ELECTION GENERAL PRIMARY, APRIL 12 1960" (PDF). Illinois State Board of Elections. Retrieved July 4, 2020.^{[permanent dead link]}
^ ^a ^b ^c Oliphant, Thomas; Wilkie, Curtis (2017). The road to Camelot: Inside JFK's Five-Year Campaign. Simon & Schuster.
^ ^a ^b "OFFICIAL VOTE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS Cast at the GENERAL ELECTION, NOVEMBER 8, 1960 JUDICIAL ELECTION 1959-1960 • PRIMARY ELECTION GENERAL PRIMARY, APRIL 12 1960" (PDF). Illinois State Board of Elections. Retrieved July 4, 2020.^{[permanent dead link]}
^ ^a ^b "RESULTS OF 1960 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION PRIMARIES". John F. Kennedy presidential library. Retrieved January 18, 2019.
^ ^a ^b "The fallacy of Nixon's graceful exit". Salon. November 10, 2000. Retrieved May 12, 2016.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Greenberg, David (October 16, 2000). "Was Nixon Robbed?". Slate.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "Another Race To the Finish". The Washington Post. November 17, 2000. Retrieved May 12, 2016.
^ von Hippel, Paul (August 8, 2017). "Here's a voter fraud myth: Richard Daley 'stole' Illinois for John Kennedy in the 1960 election?". The Washington Post.
^ Kallina 1985.
^ Kallina 1985, p. 114–115.
^ Kallina 1985, p. 115–116.
^ Kallina 1985, p. 116–117.

Works cited

Kallina, Edmund (1985). "Was the 1960 Presidential Election Stolen? The Case of Illinois". Presidential Studies Quarterly. 15 (1). Wiley-Blackwell: 113–118. JSTOR 27550168.

[1] "United States Presidential election of 1960 - Encyclopædia Britannica". Retrieved June 8, 2017.

[2] "1960 Election for the Forty-Fourth Term (1961-65)". Retrieved June 8, 2017.

[3] "1960 Presidential General Election Results - Illinois". Retrieved June 8, 2017.

[4] "The American Presidency Project - Election of 1960". Retrieved June 8, 2017.

[bluebookprimary-5] Illinois Blue Book 1959-1960. Illinois Secretary of State. p. 871. Retrieved March 31, 2020. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)

[1986GE-6] "OFFICIAL VOTE Cast at the GENERAL ELECTION NOVEMBER 4, 1986" (PDF). www.elections.il.gov. Illinois State Board of Elections. Retrieved April 10, 2020.^{[permanent dead link]}

[bluebookGE-7] Illinois Blue Book 1961-1962. Illinois Secretary of State. p. 963. Retrieved March 31, 2020. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)

[results1-8] "OFFICIAL VOTE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS Cast at the GENERAL ELECTION, NOVEMBER 8, 1960 JUDICIAL ELECTION 1959-1960 • PRIMARY ELECTION GENERAL PRIMARY, APRIL 12 1960" (PDF). Illinois State Board of Elections. Retrieved July 4, 2020.^{[permanent dead link]}

[camelot-9] Oliphant, Thomas; Wilkie, Curtis (2017). The road to Camelot: Inside JFK's Five-Year Campaign. Simon & Schuster.

[results2-10] "OFFICIAL VOTE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS Cast at the GENERAL ELECTION, NOVEMBER 8, 1960 JUDICIAL ELECTION 1959-1960 • PRIMARY ELECTION GENERAL PRIMARY, APRIL 12 1960" (PDF). Illinois State Board of Elections. Retrieved July 4, 2020.^{[permanent dead link]}

[results-11] "RESULTS OF 1960 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION PRIMARIES". John F. Kennedy presidential library. Retrieved January 18, 2019.

[salon-12] "The fallacy of Nixon's graceful exit". Salon. November 10, 2000. Retrieved May 12, 2016.

[greenberg_slate-13] Greenberg, David (October 16, 2000). "Was Nixon Robbed?". Slate.

[wash_post-14] "Another Race To the Finish". The Washington Post. November 17, 2000. Retrieved May 12, 2016.

[wash_post_von_hippel-15] von Hippel, Paul (August 8, 2017). "Here's a voter fraud myth: Richard Daley 'stole' Illinois for John Kennedy in the 1960 election?". The Washington Post.

[FOOTNOTEKallina1985-16] Kallina 1985.

[FOOTNOTEKallina1985114–115-17] Kallina 1985, p. 114–115.

[FOOTNOTEKallina1985115–116-18] Kallina 1985, p. 115–116.

[FOOTNOTEKallina1985116–117-19] Kallina 1985, p. 116–117.

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v t e Elections in Illinois
By year	1936 1938 1940 1942 1944 1946 1948 1950 1952 1954 1956 1958 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1969 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1998 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022
Presidential	1820 1824 1828 1832 1836 1840 1844 1848 1852 1856 1860 1864 1868 1872 1876 1880 1884 1888 1892 1896 1900 1904 1908 1912 1916 1920 1924 1928 1932 1936 1940 1944 1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 (Dem primary, Rep primary) 2012 2016 (Dem primary) 2020 (Dem primary)
U.S. Senate	1885 1913 1914 1918 1920 1924 1926 1928 1930 1932 1936 1938 1940 1942 1944 1948 1950 1954 1956 1960 1962 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1978 1980 1984 1986 1990 1992 1996 1998 2002 2004 2008 2010 2014 2016 2020 2022
U.S. House	2000 (1st) 2006 2008 2010 (17th) 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022
Special	2nd congressional, 1995 14th congressional, 2008 5th congressional, 2009 2nd congressional, 2013 18th congressional, 2015 Comptroller, 2016
Gubernatorial	1818 1822 1826 1830 1834 1838 1842 1846 1848 1852 1856 1860 1864 1868 1872 1876 1880 1884 1888 1892 1896 1900 1904 1908 1912 1916 1920 1924 1928 1932 1936 1940 1944 1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 2022
Lieutenant gubernatorial	1818 1822 1826 1830 1834 1838 1842 1846 1848 1852 1856 1860 1864 1868 1872 1876 1880 1884 1888 1892 1896 1900 1904 1908 1912 1916 1920 1924 1928 1932 1936 1940 1944 1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968
Other state executive offices	Attorney General 2018 2022 Secretary of State 2022 Comptroller 2016
State Senate	2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024
State House	2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024
State judicial	1936 1938 1940 1942 1948 1960 1962 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022
Ballot measures and referendums	State capitol referendum (1834) Cutback Amendment (1980) Crime Victim Rights Amendment (1992) Governor Recall Amendment (2010) Public Pension Amendment (2012) Marsy's Law (2014) Right to Vote Amendment (2014) Transportation Taxes and Fees Lockbox Amendment (2016) Fair Tax (2020) Right to Collective Bargaining Amendment (2022)
Chicago mayoral	1837 1838 1839 1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 (Mar) 1844 (Apr) 1845 1846 1847 1848 1849 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1865 1867 1869 1871 1873 1876 (Apr) 1876 (Jul) 1877 1879 1881 1883 1885 1887 1889 1891 1893 (Apr) 1893 (Dec) 1895 1897 1899 1901 1903 1905 1907 1911 1915 1919 1923 1927 1931 1935 1939 1943 1947 1951 1955 1959 1963 1967 1971 1975 1977 1979 1983 1987 1989 1991 1995 1999 2003 2007 2011 2015 2019 2023
Chicago City Council	1923 1925 1927 1929 1931 1933 1935 1939 1943 1947 1951 1955 1959 1963 1967 1971 1975 1979 1983 1987 1991 1995 1999 2003 2007 2011 2015 2019 2023
Other municipal	1924 Cicero
Cook County	1946 1980 (State's Attorney) 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022

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