November 8, 1960: Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts is elected the 35th President of the United States. At 43, he is the youngest man ever elected to the office, although Theodore Roosevelt was 42 when he was first sworn in. He is also the 1st Catholic to achieve the office, and remains the only one.
He beats the Republican nominee, incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon. It is incredibly close: JFK wins 49.72 percent of the popular vote, Nixon 49.55, a margin of 118,000 votes. The Electoral Vote goes 303 to 219 for Kennedy (with 15 votes from Southern electors going elsewhere), making it look like it wasn't so close. The election was so close, comedian Mort Sahl said, "Neither of them is going to win."
Kennedy won Illinois by 8,858 votes. To this day, Republicans say JFK's friend, Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago, "stole" the State's vote for him. There's just one problem with this theory: Even if it were true, it wouldn't have mattered. Winning Illinois would've changed the Electoral Vote from 303-219 Kennedy to 276-246 Kennedy, still above the threshold for a majority, which was then 269. Nor would winning Illinois have given Nixon the edge in the popular vote.
In addition, there are stories that the real reason Nixon didn't contest the Illinois vote is that he knew that Southern Illinois had seen vote-tampering in his favor. Indeed, only 1 State had a vote so close that, as with Florida in 2000, a legally-mandated recount kicked in. It was the newest State, Hawaii. And it did switch... from Nixon to Kennedy.
The Republicans actually did better in the Congressional elections, gaining 22 seats in the House, and 2 in the Senate.
The Kennedy campaign has been celebrated in many ways, from Theodore H. White's Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Making of the President 1960 to the various movies about JFK to the extensive exhibit at JFK's Presidential Library, on the waterfront of the Boston campus of the University of Massachusetts.
Indeed, for all of his accomplishments, JFK will forever be remembered best for the way his Presidency began, with a legendary campaign for the office and a spectacular Inaugural Address; and for the way it ended, assassinated in public in broad daylight, with an official solution that remains not fully accepted by the American people.
Needing something to do after leaving the Vice Presidency, and not being President, Nixon wrote a memoir about his political experiences to that point. He titled it Six Crises. In addition to this election, he included the Alger Hiss case, what became known as the Checkers Speech, his role as "Acting President" after Eisenhower's 1955 heart attack, his ill-fated trip to South America in 1958, and his "Kitchen Debate" with Nikita Khrushchev in 1959.
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November 8, 1960, like all modern U.S. Election Days, was a Tuesday. The baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. The NHL season had begun, but no games were scheduled for the day. But there was 1 NBA game. Somewhat appropriately, given JFK's win, Boston won this as well: The Boston Celtics beat the Cincinnati Royals, 136-120 at the Cincinnati Gardens.
For the Royals, Jack Twyman scored 32, and Oscar Robertson 31. But for the Celtics, Tom Heinsohn scored 33, Bob Cousy 30, and Bill Sharman 26. Bill Russell only scored 2, but had 15 rebounds.
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