The 1964 United States presidential election in New York took place on November 3, 1964, as part of the 1964 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. New York voters chose 43 electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote pitting incumbent Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson and his running mate, President pro tempore of the Senate Hubert Humphrey, against Republican challenger and Senator Barry Goldwater from Arizona and his running mate and Chair of the Republican National Committee, William E. Miller.

Quick Facts Turnout, Nominee ...

1964 United States presidential election in New York

← 1960 November 3, 1964 1968 →
Turnout	64.4%[1] 2.5 pp
Nominee Lyndon B. Johnson Barry Goldwater Party Democratic Republican Alliance Liberal Home state Texas Arizona Running mate Hubert Humphrey William E. Miller Electoral vote 43 0 Popular vote 4,913,156 2,243,559 Percentage 68.56% 31.31%
County Results Johnson   50-60%   60-70%   70-80%   80-90%
President before election Lyndon B. Johnson Democratic Elected President Lyndon B. Johnson Democratic

Close

Johnson carried the state in a historic landslide, taking 68.56% of the vote to Goldwater's 31.31%, a victory margin of 37.25%. This is the only election in history in which a Democratic presidential candidate carried every single county in the state of New York. The staunch conservative Barry Goldwater was widely seen in the liberal Northeast as a right-wing extremist;^[2] he had voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Johnson campaign portrayed him as a warmonger who as president would provoke a nuclear war.^[3] Thus Goldwater performed especially weakly in northeastern states like New York: he wrote off the state and neighboring Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island from the beginning of his presidential campaign even before Kennedy's assassination.^[4] For the first time in history, a Democratic presidential candidate swept every Northeastern state in 1964. Not only did Johnson win every Northeastern state, but he won all of them with over 60% of the vote. New York weighed in as the fifth most Democratic state in the nation.

Johnson dominated heavily Democratic cities such as New York City, the largest in the country, as well as the upstate cities of Albany, Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse, which historically provided Democratic candidates an advantage. However, Johnson also swept every county in the state, including traditionally Republican parts of upstate New York and Long Island. Johnson carried all five boroughs of New York City, the first presidential candidate to do so since the landslide re-election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1936. In the borough of Manhattan, Johnson broke 80% of the vote, the first presidential candidate ever to do so. Brooklyn and the Bronx voted over 70% Democratic. Traditionally Republican Queens, narrowly carried by John F. Kennedy four years earlier in 1960, gave over 60% of the vote to Johnson. Even Staten Island voted Democratic, the only occasion it would do so between 1936 and 1996, although it was the only county to give Goldwater more than 45% of the vote.^[5] Overall, New York City gave Johnson 73.02% of the vote, a citywide vote share no candidate would surpass until fellow Democrat Bill Clinton’s 77.10% in 1996. With 2,183,646 votes from the five boroughs, Johnson also received more votes in New York City than any other presidential candidate in history, setting a record that would hold until Democrat Hillary Clinton won 2,191,869 votes in 2016. Johnson's record of 4.9 million votes won by a single candidate in New York would hold for four years longer, being surpassed by Joe Biden in 2020.

Johnson's 68.56% of the vote remains the highest vote share any presidential candidate of either party has ever received in New York State. His 37.25% victory margin also remains the widest margin by which any Democratic presidential candidate has ever won New York State, and the second widest margin by which any candidate of either party has ever carried the state behind Republican Warren G. Harding’s 37.61% margin in the 1920 Republican landslide.^[6] This result also made Johnson one of only three presidential candidates of either party who have been able to sweep every county in New York State, along with Harding in 1920 and his successor Calvin Coolidge in 1924. New York weighed in for this election as 15% more Democratic than the national average.

This is the only time in American history that the counties of Genesee,^[8] Livingston,^[9] Orleans,^[10] and Wyoming^[11] voted for the Democratic presidential nominee. It was also the first time in history that Chautauqua, Cortland, Essex, Ontario, Schuyler, and Washington counties voted Democratic, though not the last. Most of these counties were in the far western reaches of New York where the Whig Party was strongest in the Second Party System, before the rise of the Republican Party and during which Democrats regularly won more than a handful of upstate New York counties.^[12]

Many counties ended long streaks of not voting Democratic: It was the first time since 1948 that Monroe County voted for a Democrat, the first time since 1936 that Richmond, Rockland, Schenectady, and Sullivan counties voted for a Democrat, the first time since 1932 that Rensselaer County voted for a Democrat, the first time since 1916 that Chemung, Greene, Hamilton, Otsego, and Schoharie counties voted for a Democrat, the first time since 1912 that Cattaraugus, Columbia, Herkimer, Lewis, Nassau, Putnam, Seneca, Steuben, Suffolk, Tompkins, Ulster, and Westchester counties voted for a Democrat, the first time since 1876 that Orange County voted for a Democrat, the first since 1872 that Dutchess county voted for a Democrat, and the first time since 1852 that numerous upstate counties voted for a Democrat, namely: Allegany, Broome, Chenango, Delaware, Jefferson, Madison, Onondaga, Oswego, St. Lawrence, Tioga, Warren, and Wayne counties. Finally, Fulton and Cayuga counties had not voted Democratic since 1844, and Saratoga county not since 1836 – 128 years prior.^[13]

Unlike some analogous Northeastern counties where Johnson only won very narrowly, like Lancaster in Pennsylvania, Johnson won these normally Republican upstate counties by large margins over 25%.^[5] Of these counties, Greene, Hamilton, Putnam, Steuben, Tioga, Allegany, and Wayne never voted Democratic since. Furthermore, Yates, Fulton, Chenango, Jefferson, Delaware, Herkimer, Lewis, Schoharie, Cattaraugus, Chemung, Oneida, Ontario, and Schuyler have only voted Democratic once since, for Bill Clinton in 1996.^[13] This is one of two occasions between 1852 and 1992 that the Democratic candidate carried New York outside of the city (along with 1912), however, this was the only time they did so with a majority of the vote.

• United States presidential elections in New York
• Civil Rights Movement
• Great Society
• Jim Crow laws
• Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson
• The Cold War
• Vietnam War