1960 JFK Picks Paul Douglas For VP. What Happens?

[gorkay]

Kennedy-Douglas might not do as well in the south as Kennedy-Johnson did, and in an extremely close race, that might have cost them the election.

[gorkay]

I will answer the question about whether or not the public would have been "enraged" had the House elected Kennedy when Nixon had a majority of the PV in this way: Was there widespread outrage over the Supreme Court giving the 2000 election to Bush? If the Dems saw a way to grab the presidency, they'd do it and worry about the outrage later, just as the GOP did in 2000.

As for what the southern Democrats would do in such a case: I would think they would at least consider voting for Nixon, or someone other than Kennedy, because if their support of Kennedy had been a foregone conclusion, why wouldn't they just have supported him in the first place? I think they would have been loath to swing the House election to a Republican, but would have tried to use their support as a bargaining chip to get something from Kennedy.