Ok so here is my first ever thread. As we all know, LBJ won one of the greatest landslides in presidential history, winning a modern era record 61.1% of the popular vote and carrying 44 of the 50 states. His electoral margin was overwhelming, 486 to 52, losing only the deep south to Barry Goldwater with the exception being Goldwater's home state which I think he only lost by about 5,000 votes. HOWEVER, I sometimes feel that Johnson should have won by a bigger margin. His 61-39 percent margin was massive, but lower than his polling throughout the campaign. I have my own theories but why do you guys think he at least slightly underperformed?
Actually, Johnson’s electoral margin is not that underwhelming relative to some previous landslides, especially Warren Harding’s in 1920, when he won 60.4 percent to 34.1 percent in the popular vote, but won only 404–127 in the electoral vote.
The 1920 and 1964 landslides are — although with parties reversed — remarkably similar to each other in many respects, although Cox did much worse than Goldwater in the Midwest and West and much better than the Arizona Senator in the border states.
I have certainly heard he did not do as well as polls suggested in many areas, especially those states which Goldwater carried. Perhaps the public were — like with Trump — hesistant to express their views widely?
