1963 Mississippi Gubernatorial Race

[RBH]

I entered the results in America Votes 7 into a spreadsheet. And on comparing them to the 1964 Presidential results from Mississippi, I made these breakdowns of how counties voted in the 1963 Gubernatorial race and the 1964 Presidential race.

Counties which went for Phillips went 54/46 for him and 81/19 for Goldwater.

Counties which went for Johnson but gave him less than 60% went 55/45 for Johnson and 85/15 for Goldwater

Counties which went for Johnson and gave him more than 60% went 69/31 for Johnson and 90/10 for Goldwater

The vote distribution in those counties-
Phillips: 15% of the vote in 1963, 16% in 1964
Johnson 50-59: 28% in 1963, 29% in 1964
Johnson 60+: 57% in 1963, 55% in 1964

Here's the manually-drawn county map for the 1963 election (with the county totals not entered here since the only source is America Votes):



62/38 Johnson, but it was the first time a Republican had run for Governor in around 80 years.

Info on Phillips/Johnson:

http://www.cresswellslist.com/ballots2/phillips.htm

Although a number of issues surfaced in the 1963 general election campaign, only one mattered: Which candidate hated the Kennedys the most? Whichever one had the stronger anti-Kennedy credentials was likely to win. John and Robert Kennedy were hated not only for their role in the University of Mississippi integration. They had intervened a number of times to protect black civil rights activists in the South. They also sought new congressional civil rights laws.

Rubel Phillips said if you hated the Kennedys (and most Mississippi voters did) then you should not vote for the Kennedys' party, but should vote for the Republican candidate instead. Once again, he predicted the 1964 presidential election would pit John F. Kennedy against Barry Goldwater, and so Mississippians should get used to voting Republican. The party of Paul B. Johnson, Jr., Phillips argued, was the party of Hubert Humphrey and other liberals.

Paul B. Johnson, Jr. responded that the Republican party was the original party of black voting rights--at least back in the 1870s. While he admitted the current national Democratic party was out of touch with Mississippi, he urged that the state Democratic party was the best bulwark against federal intrusion into the state's affairs. To prove it, he pointed to his work with Governor Barnett to keep James Meredith out of the University of Mississippi.

[Mr.Phips]

This was actually a pretty good showing for a Republican that year.  Its amazing that the Republican won some of the Delta counties.

[Rob]

Disgusting.

Its amazing that the Republican won some of the Delta counties.

Not really- the Delta counties Phillips carried were on the cutting edge of the Republican surge, and had voted for Eisenhower in 1952.

[RBH]

I think that some of the 50s/60s splits in Mississippi were hinted at in the primary returns for guys like Bilbo in the 40s.

Prentiss Walker faced James Eastland in 1966 and got whupped. Eastland won 66/27 after Walker tried to paint Eastland as being too liberal and being too supportive of LBJ and Kennedy.

Walker won Claiborne, Jefferson, Simpson, and Smith Counties in 1966.

James Carmichael produced the following map in a 58/39 loss in 1972 (where Carmichael probably ran to the left of Eastland, and Nixon refused to support Carmichael):



Carmichael was the only Winthrop Rockefeller Republican of note in Mississippi. Even if Phillips did run to the left of John Bell Williams in 1967.

[Gabu]

I always love this maps where everyone's trying to out-racist the other guy.

[nclib]

Speaking of Mississippi elections in the 1960's, I looked at the Johnson/Goldwater results in MS, and noticed that although Goldwater won 87% statewide, he only won 63% in Hancock County (Gulf Coast; main city is Bay St. Louis).

Does anyone know anything more about this county? The Johnson/Goldwater results seem to indicate that it was progressive for Mississippi, but Bush carried it with 70% in 2004.

[RBH]

if I ever end up having the endurance to type in results from 159 counties for 4 candidates, I could make a manual map for Carmichael/Talmadage, where Carmichael won a plurality of 45/43, and lost the County Unit vote 244 to 144.

And here's a quick uplifting Rockefeller/Johnson map (1966 AR Gov) and the 1964 Presidental map from Arkansas

[Mr.Phips]

How the hell did Goldwater get 87% of the vote?  That never happens except for in Washington D.C.  This explains way a handful of Republican Congressmen were elected for the first time in the Bible belt that year.

[Grad Students are the Worst]

if I ever end up having the endurance to type in results from 159 counties for 4 candidates, I could make a manual map for Carmichael/Talmadage, where Carmichael won a plurality of 45/43, and lost the County Unit vote 244 to 144.

What kind of data source is this?  If it's electronic in any form, I might be able to automate it for you.

[RBH]

It's from a book.

And here's a quick map attempt for Maddox/Callaway, where Callaway won a plurality, and since he didn't win a majority, the Democratic legislature elected Maddox.

And the green county is where the votes for other outnumbered the votes for either candidate.

How the hell did Goldwater get 87% of the vote?

The Democratic Congressional delegation of Mississippi either openly or quietly backed Goldwater

[Smash255]

How the hell did Goldwater get 87% of the vote?  That never happens except for in Washington D.C.  This explains way a handful of Republican Congressmen were elected for the first time in the Bible belt that year.

Reason is because of racist scumbags who were against Johnson's Civil Rights actions.

[RBH]

The Mississippi Congressional districts from 1963 to 1967



The Gubernatorial results by CD
CD01 (Yellow, Whitten): 61/39 Johnson
CD02 (Skyblue, Abernathy): 57/43 Johnson
CD03 (Pink, Williams): 63/37 Johnson
CD04 (Red, Winstead): 72/28 Johnson
CD05 (Green, Colmer): 59/41 Johnson

And in 1964, Goldwater's best district was the 4th district.

Goldwater won that district 93/7 and Prentiss Walker was elected there as the first Republican to represent Mississippi in 90 years.

This map was tossed in 1966 due to malapportionment. So Mississippi drew a map that just split the delta between Whitten and Abernathy's districts.

[Adlai Stevenson]

How the hell did Goldwater get 87% of the vote?  That never happens except for in Washington D.C.  This explains way a handful of Republican Congressmen were elected for the first time in the Bible belt that year.

Very few black Mississippians actually voted in the election.

[RBH]

How the hell did Goldwater get 87% of the vote?  That never happens except for in Washington D.C.  This explains way a handful of Republican Congressmen were elected for the first time in the Bible belt that year.

Very few black Mississippians actually voted in the election.

Examples

Jefferson County
1964: 1327 votes, 95% Goldwater
1968: 3380 votes, 63% Humphrey

Claiborne County
1964: 1310 votes, 94% Goldwater
1968: 3502 votes, 61% Humphrey

Holmes County
1964: 3225 votes, 97% Goldwater
1968: 7409 votes, 52% Humphrey

[Gabu]

How the hell did Goldwater get 87% of the vote?  That never happens except for in Washington D.C.  This explains way a handful of Republican Congressmen were elected for the first time in the Bible belt that year.

Very few black Mississippians actually voted in the election.

Yes; if you take a look at the 1964 election results as stored on the Atlas, you'll see that only 33.9% of the voting age population actually voted in Mississippi on that year.  Compare this to the overall nationwide turnout of 61.9% and the 1968 Mississippi turnout of 53.3% (from which RBH's second numbers come from).