Talk Elections

The question is as in the title. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson won my home state of Colorado 61-38% over Barry Goldwater. Colorado was the closest state to Johnson's national average that year. On the map, the state stands out, as all of its neighbors-Arizona, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming-gave Goldwater higher shares than his national average. Why did Colorado support Johnson more strongly than its neighbors did? Especially given that it was a Republican-leaning state at the time, and after 1964, did not give a majority to a Democratic candidate again until Barack Obama won it in 2008.

Discuss below.

Well Johnson was a pretty popular president in all but the south, Goldwater was still hated, and while he did come close in several rural states, in even relatively urban states Goldwater was fuking toxic so I guess I can sort of see it

Maybe the weather was really good in Colorado that year compared to neighboring states (https://blog.frontiersin.org/2017/08/29/frontiers-in-psychology-voter-behavior-influenced-by-hot-weather/) :)

Any other guesses?

For anyone wondering why Johnson did so well in rural areas:

http://unionstats.gsu.edu/MLR_7-01_StateUnionDensity.pdf (see Table 1)

Quite a contrast. Nebraska's unionization rate was the same as Hawaii's current rate!

I know that Johnson did exceptionally well in the mining and industrial counties out West that are now either strongly Republican or trending that way. He got over 70% of the vote in Sweetwater County, WY; Carbon County, UT; Greenlee County, AZ; and White Pine County, NV. And of course hit that number in Deer Lodge and Silver Bow Counties, MT. In Colorado, Johnson got over 70% of the vote in Pueblo, Las Animas, and Huerfano Counties. It's also obvious that he won over a large number of normally Republican farmers and ranchers, probably because of Goldwater's unpopular views on agricultural subsidies. Johnson was the last Democrat to carry the now Titanium Republican Plains and Mountain Counties of Western, Central, and Eastern Colorado.

I never received a firm answer to this question, so I'm bumping this thread forwards to see if there are any additional perspectives.

Colorado was clearly a lean Republican state at that time.  But it does appear back then, Colorado was very elastic and extremely responsive to national trends and has had a two-party tradition.  The Democrats won a huge victory statewide in 1958.  Then the Republicans came back in 1960 and 1962.  And with the Democratic trend in 1964, Colorado went strongly for Johnson.  And it went back heavily Republican in 1966 and again in 1968.

Colorado in the 1960s seems similar to New Hampshire these days.

There is a political article from June 1965 about the 1964 election in Colorado--written by Conrad McBride, who was a long time professor at the University of Colorado.  He also published an article on the 1966 election as well.  It's under a pay wall, but you can "rent" the articles free for 2 weeks:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1065912965018002-205?journalCode=prqa

I was able to access this article through Google Scholar, and I've actually read it before. But thank you for the insights.

Was Colorado on the list of states the Goldwater campaign targeted to win that year, or did they concede campaigning there earlier as presumed loss to Johnson? Obviously he lost a ton of states he made appearances in, but I’d be curious if his campaign made a push to win it. I would assume this to be a yes when looking at how Goldwater would get to 270 that year.

As far as I know, Colorado was thought to be winnable by the Goldwater campaign, but I don't think they prioritized it. It certainly would have been a part of a hypothetical Goldwater victory. As noted above, Colorado was a generally Republican-leaning state at the presidential level from 1940-2004, with 1948 and 1964 being the only elections during that period in which it was more Democratic than the national average.

Colorado was one of eleven states that Nixon had won in 1960 where Johnson received more than 60% of the vote (the others were Alaska, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin).