Why Did LBJ win Florida, the Upper South, and Idaho in 1964?

[OSR stands with Israel]

Also a bit funny that most Kennedy counties in Florida voted for George Wallace 8 years later.

Anyway, in addition to the Deep South/Upper South divide in 1964, there was a bit of a divide between states that seceded in the Civil War and those that did not.  LBJ took only 56% in Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina, yet received a whopping 64% in Kentucky and 68% in West Virginia.  Kentucky and Tennessee rarely vote so differently.

This much is true. I've watched CBS's 1964 Election Night coverage on YouTube, and I remember how Kentucky was projected for Johnson as soon as the polls closed. Early returns from Tennessee, however, showed a tight race between him and Goldwater, with Johnson leading by a small margin. Of course, he ultimately went on to win the state by 11%. It was mentioned on here that the issue of TVA privatization is probably what cost Goldwater Tennessee, outweighing the civil rights backlash which might have otherwise handed the state to him.

Looking at the county map for that year, Goldwater held up in ancestrally Republican Eastern Tennessee, won both Knox and Hamilton Counties, and carried the block of Republican counties near Memphis. He also came within 5% in Shelby County, which was majority-white back then. Johnson, conversely, did exceptionally well in the traditionally Democratic rural areas of Central and Western Tennessee, almost certainly because of those TVA concerns:

Wait can you post a link to that 1964 coverage because I can’t seem to find it

[OSR stands with Israel]

LBJ did pretty good in Arkansas as well: