Skip to content
The American Political Almanac
RECONSTRUCTION & THE GILDED AGETHE SYSTEM OF 1896THE NEW DEAL ORDERTHE LONG REALIGNMENTPOLARIZED ERA1868RRRRD1888RDRRR1908RDDRR1928RDDDD1948DRR1960DDRRDRR1988RDDRR2008DDRD2024R

The Nation Decides

Electoral votes, the popular vote, and how every state moved
✓ Won
John F. Kennedy
Democrat
John F. Kennedy
303
Electoral votes
49.7% · 34,175,956
President · The New Deal Order

1960

Kennedy def. Nixon, 303–219
vote totals summed from county returns
Richard Nixon
Republican
Richard Nixon
219
Electoral votes
49.6% · 34,061,318
Harry F. Byrd
Unpledged Southern Democratic electors
Harry F. Byrd
0.4% of the vote · 15 electoral votes
Electoral college — 269 to win (537 electors)303 D · 219 R · 15 other
Popular vote49.7% · 49.6% · margin D+0.1

68,732,210 votes counted (summed from counties) · Excludes third-party votes in 1 county whose source totals are double-counted.

Electoral map — one tile per state · coloured by county-summed popular vote
R+40D+40third party won

Grey states were carried by a third-party ticket — the two-party margin shading does not apply there.

Per-state electoral vote detail is staged from 1976; earlier years show the national college in the bar above, and states are coloured by their county-summed popular vote.

Missouri: the source double-counts some county totals this year, so third-party vote there is understated (shown with a +).

The swing from last time
Change in each state’s margin since 1956 · ← toward Republicans · toward Democrats →

The Map Beneath the Map

Three thousand counties, and the demography of the divide

Every county that cast a ballot, shaded by its margin. Hover any county to read it; click to open its 156-year profile. Scrub the timeline above and the map redraws in place. Vote counts exist for all forty elections; the demographic lenses begin in 2000.

County margin

Drawing three thousand counties…

R+40D+40no returns

Who Voted for Whom

The American electorate by income, education, faith and more

How each slice of the electorate split between the parties — by their own account. Weighted ANES self-reports from a national sample: they tilt slightly toward the winner and carry no county detail.

Loading the survey…

Notes on this election

  • First election for Alaska and Hawaii. Fifteen unpledged Southern electors (MS, AL) plus one Oklahoma defector voted for Harry F. Byrd. PV margin ~0.17 points — the closest of the 20th century.