Did Goldwater's views on Medicare and Social Security cost him Florida?

[darklordoftech]

I know that Goldwater opposed Medicare, and I know that he supposedly wanted to make Social Security "voluntary" (what does that mean?). Did retirees living Florida vote for Lyndon because they wanted Medicare and feared Goldwater's plans for Social Security?

[Calthrina950]

I know that Goldwater opposed Medicare, and I know that he supposedly wanted to make Social Security "voluntary" (what does that mean?). Did retirees living Florida vote for Lyndon because they wanted Medicare and feared Goldwater's plans for Social Security?

I read somewhere that Goldwater made a speech down in St. Petersburg that was about social security, and that the speech was not well received. It would not surprise me at all if retirees went for Johnson because of that.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

These view probably not only cost him Florida, but also Virginia.

[Terry the Fat Shark]

I assume fwiw he meant that you wouldn't have to pay into social security and rather you would go with a private retirement plan and thus you would never get social security benefits.

[Podgy the Bear]

I'm sure his positions made a significant impact.  With considerable migration of retirees from the Northeast and Midwest states, Florida definitely did not reflect Alabama or Georgia politically by 1964.   Still, Goldwater's position on the Civil Rights Act helped to keep Florida quite competitive--especially in the northern part of the state.

I agree with the previous post on Virginia.  As for Tennessee, Goldwater's position on TVA was not popular, and this caused Johnson to win the state by a substantial margin (about 12 points).

[RINO Tom]

People seem to want to pinpoint Goldwater losses in a lot of states to specific reasons.  Northern voters were just repulsed that he opposed civil rights.  Dovish voters in the Midwest hated his war rhetoric.  Seniors were scared off by his cuts.  From what I have read, most of Johnson's large victory was driven more by "intangible" things; Goldwater was simply viewed as kind of a fired up extreme change at a time when Johnson was pretty popular.  His positions were out of the mainstream on a lot of stuff, and his personality probably made it worse.  If he hadn't have voted against the CRA (which given his past history was far from a sure thing), he would have lost even more badly, as he wouldn't have even served as a convenient protest vote for the Deep South.

[DINGO Joe]

These view probably not only cost him Florida, but also Virginia.

I understand why it would have an outsized impact on Florida, but I don't see why it would have been the difference in VA.

[Calthrina950]

It's also interesting to note the geographic distribution of the vote in the two states that year. Goldwater still won most of the counties with substantial numbers of retirees in Florida, like Orange, Osceola, Polk, Lee, Sarasota, Manatee, Collier, etc. He also won Palm Beach, Duval, and Broward. But Johnson did win Pinellas, Hillsborough, Volusia, St. Lucie, Alachua, and Brevard, and improved in Monroe and Miami-Dade over how Kennedy did. His improvement in Miami-Dade and his carriage of Pinellas, Hillsborough, and Brevard seems to have canceled out Goldwater's gains in the Florida Panhandle and allowed him to narrowly flip the state.

In Virginia, Goldwater flipped many of the Dixiecrat rural counties in the southern part of the state, and held Henrico, Chesterfield, and Hanover Counties around Richmond. But Johnson won, in addition to Richmond itself, Virginia Beach, Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William; most of these counties had voted for Nixon in 1960, and were the ones that shifted the state into the Democratic column. I read elsewhere that suburban voters in both states, who had voted for Nixon four years prior, moved towards Johnson, primarily because of concerns related to healthcare and Social Security. I've also read that without black voters, both states would have remained Republican.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

There were a lot of racist people who voted for Johnson in spite of their racism because they found Goldwaters views on Medicare and Social Security even more dangerous than Johnsons views on Civil Rights.

[RINO Tom]

There were a lot of racist people who voted for Johnson in spite of their racism because they found Goldwaters views on Medicare and Social Security even more dangerous than Johnsons views on Civil Rights.

What a shocker!

[Calthrina950]

There were a lot of racist people who voted for Johnson in spite of their racism because they found Goldwaters views on Medicare and Social Security even more dangerous than Johnsons views on Civil Rights.

Which helps to explain why Johnson was able to still win a narrow majority in the Confederate South as a whole and why he still managed to get over 40% in Georgia, Louisiana, and South Carolina.