1960 presidential election |
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Nominees
Kennedy and Johnson |
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Convention | |
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Date(s) | July 11–15, 1960 |
City | Los Angeles, California |
Venue | Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena |
Candidates | |
Presidential nominee | John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts |
Vice Presidential nominee | Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas |
The 1960 Democratic National Convention was held in Los Angeles, California, on July 11–July 15, 1960. It nominated Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts for President and Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas for Vice President.
In the general election, the Kennedy–Johnson ticket won an electoral college victory and a narrow popular vote plurality (slightly over 110,000 nationally) over the Republican candidates Vice President Richard M. Nixon and UN Ambassador Henry C. Lodge II.
The major candidates for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination were Kennedy, Governor Pat Brown of California, Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, and Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota. Several other candidates sought support in their home state or region as "favorite son" candidates without any realistic chance of winning the nomination. Symington, Stevenson, and Johnson all declined to campaign in the presidential primaries. While this reduced their potential delegate count going into the Democratic National Convention, each of these three candidates hoped that the other leading contenders would stumble in the primaries, thus causing the convention's delegates to choose him as a "compromise" candidate acceptable to all factions of the party.