A post of mine from 2014:
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IMO almost the only way Goldwater does not get nominated is if he chooses not to run. It is true that his victory over Rockefeller in the California primary was narrow (and might not have happened if Happy Rockefeller had not given birth, reminding everyone of Rocky's divorce and remarriage) but even if he lost California he had such solid support in the South and elsewhere, that it would have been hard to stop him--certainly hard for someone as disliked in the GOP as Rockefeller.
As I noted in an old soc.history.what-if post:
In OTL, of the 278 southern delegates, 271 voted for Goldwater, and
Goldwater's southern coordinator, John Grenier, claimed that 260 of them were
"rock solid", meaning that they would have stayed with Goldwater even had he
lost in California. (Gilder and Chapman, p. 184). Had Rocky not remarried,
and had he won both New Hampshire and California, the numbers for Goldwater
in the South might be a little lower, but not much. Goldwater also had the
advantage that whereas he had virtually unanimous support of delegates in
southern and some western states, even the most "liberal" northeastern states
were not solidly anti-Goldwater. There were at least *some* absolutely
unshakeable Goldwater delegates almost everywhere. Even Massachusetts
contributed five Goldwater delegates--including the man who had been campaign
manager for Robert Welch in the latter's unsuccessful 1950 campaign for
lieutenant governor...
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/_JrgSpNcJp0/AusEnmEw5hIJ
I suppose there *is* a bare possibility that Rockefeller and some minor candidates and "favorite sons" could get enough delegates to deprive Goldwater of a first-ballot convention victory, leaving the way open for a compromise candidate--but who? The obvious choice is Nixon. As I wrote in another post:
Nixon's behavior in OTL 1964 does not seem to me to be that of a man who
was convinced that the GOP was sure to lose and would not take the
nomination under any circumstances.
Again to quote Gilder and Chapman (p. 154):
"Many critical observers pointed to evidence during 1963 and 1964 that the
official Nixon posture of aloofness and neutrality was being stretched to
the point of deception. Their evidence suggested that though Nixon might
realize that he could not court the party, that it must court him, he
nonetheless did actively seek to stimulate its ardor directly and
indirectly."
Gilder and Chapman note that Nixon made overtures to the Goldwaterites
before the California primary--which he, like most observers, thought
Rockefeller would win. ("Three days before the California primary, he
privately predicted a Rockefeller victory and told friends he was ready to
heed a call to service."--p. 137) He periodically denounced "stop-
Goldwater" efforts.
Then, after the California primary, with Goldwater the clear front-runner,
Nixon observed in a speech at Detroit that Goldwater was, after all, still
not nominated, and that new opposition could develop at any time. If a
deadlock did develop, and "if the party is unable to settle on another
man," he would willingly accept whatever role the party might ask him to
take. "And if the party should decide on me as its candidate, Mr. Johnson
would know he'd been in a fight." Two days later, at the governors'
conference at Cleveland,
"Nixon attacked Goldwater on the very issues for which--in a unity ploy--
he had defended him two days before in Detroit--the United Nations,
diplomatic relations with the USSR, social security, right-to-work
legislation, TVA. 'Looking to the future of the party,' he declared, 'it
would be a tragedy if Senator Goldwater's views, as previously stated,
were not challenged and repudiated.' (This was the man who shortly after
called Scranton a 'weak man'--because he changed his mind so often!)..."
(pp. 151-2) He then went on to meet with Michigan Governor George Romney,
and Romney claimed that Nixon urged him to run.
"Besides wriggling in and out of other people's ideologies, Nixon went
well beyond his pose of strict aloofness in Nebraska and Oregon by
communicating directly with his managers there. According to an Evans-
Novak account at the time, his neutrality posture also did not prevent him
from attending a strategy conclave of all his main supporters, presided
over by former Secretary of the Interior Fred Seaton, on May 30 in New
York's Waldorf Towers. Anticipating a Rockefeller win in California's
primary, Nixon scheduled an eleven-state speaking tour to follow it. The
kickoff was to be a testimonial dinner on Long Island for Congressman
Steven B. Derounian and the guest list featured a half-dozen top
Republican leaders who had not committed themselves to either Goldwater or
Rockefeller. The facts do show that *at the very least* Nixon cooperated
with his supporters and arranged his plans so that he would be within
earshot if the call to duty came."
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/Ghzn1YByCDA/ww4p3unAnz8J
(My reference in those posts to "Gilder and Chapman" is to George Gilder and Bruce Chapman, *The Party That Lost Its Head*. The book no doubt has an anti-Goldwater bias--it was written in 1966 while Gilder and Chapman were still liberal Republicans, before they moved to the right--but still contains much useful information about the battle for the 1964 GOP presidential nomination.)
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...er-not-nominated-in-1964.319713/#post-9327551
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Here I'll just add that in the unlikely event Nixon does get the nomination in 1964 he is very likely to lose, given peace and prosperity and the reluctance of the American people to have three presidents in a little more than a year. Yes, he would get some of the usual Republican voters who deserted Goldwater in OTL but that's not enough, especially since Wallace would run and deprive him of any chance of a breakthrough in the South.
