Myth - Kennedy Stole the 1960 from Nixon

[Michael T. Griffith]

There were widespread reports of voter fraud in IL and TX in the 1960 election. If Nixon had won those two states, he would have won the election with 270 Electoral College votes to Kennedy's 252. Kennedy's margin of victory in TX was only 46,000 out of 2.3 million votes cast. Kennedy's margin of victory in IL was even slimmer: 9,000 out of 4.7 million votes cast.

Many Republicans urged Nixon to demand an investigation into the voter-fraud reports and to challenge the results in IL and TX. Even some moderate Republicans were convinced that the fraud allegations were credible enough to warrant a challenge to the results in IL and TX. But Nixon, for various reasons, decided against doing so.

The results in IL were especially suspicious. IL had been a strongly Republican state for the previous two presidential elections. The state went for Ike by 10 points in 1952 and by 19 points in 1956. Similarly, Texas had gone for Ike by comfortable margins in 1952 and 1956. It was well known that Daley and LBJ strongly disliked the Democratic nominee in 1952 and 1956, Adlai Stevenson. The Daley machine in IL and the LBJ machine in TX may very well have given the election to JFK in 1960 because they viewed him as an acceptable Democratic nominee.

Of course, liberal/Democratic authors have always dismissed the idea that JFK owed his victory to election fraud in IL and TX, but this may well have been the case. We will never know because Nixon declined to challenge the results in those two states.

[Colin Crow]

Perhaps I should have rephrased the original post and topic better. My main focus was on the Outfit and the notion that there was a deal between them and Joe Kennedy that delivered the election to JFK. In isolation that was not enough to do so.

[Gary Smith]

It may be an unpopular opinion here, but the '60 election was indeed probably stolen. Texas and Illinois were the difference.

Richard Nixon gets hammered a lot, but he decided not to contest the election as he did not want to put the nation through it. Pretty noble, in my opinion. The Repubs had pretty good ground to stand on with the shenanigans in Texas and Illinois, and were urging Nixon to contest.

Kennedy was visibly relieved when Nixon told him he would not contest when the two men met in Palm Beach a few days after the election. I suspect JFK knew he got lucky.