Lyndon Baines Johnson elected to second term as US President

Historical Context Note

Lucas Paul Richert (University of Saskatchewan)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Domains

Changes of government, elections and reigns

Dates

Date of occurrence 1964-03-04

Places

United States (Location)

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Lyndon B. Johnson, who had risen to the office of the president after the assassination of Kennedy, crushed his Republican opponent, Barry Goldwater, in November 1964. Johnson successfully painted Goldwater, the leader of the conservative wing of the Republican Party, as a dangerous extremist who could ignite a global nuclear conflagration with the Soviet Union or China. On election day, Johnson’s victory was decisive, as he won 61 percent of the popular vote, the largest margin of victory in presidential voting history. The final electoral college tally was 486 to 52 for Johnson. Johnson saw his resounding victory as providing him with a mandate to set in motion his Great Society Reforms, including the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

119 words

Citation: Richert, Lucas Paul. "Lyndon Baines Johnson elected to second term as US President". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 October 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=3426, accessed 25 April 2024.]

Save this article