The political world was shocked as two Southern Democratic Governors, Ross Barnett of Mississippi and George Wallace of Alabama, teamed up to revive the States Rights Democratic Party label on August 17th. Johnson himself dismissed them as fools, but privately worried about how far their popularity in the South could go. The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in July had met with resistance from twenty Southern Democratic Senators, with only one in favor (Senator Yarborough from Johnson's Texas), and with resistance from eighty-seven Southern Democratic Representatives, compared to only seven in favor.
Some speculated Johnson would lose not only the South, but the whole election. The fears of 1948 deadlocking the Presidential election, and forcing both Democratic and Republicans to kowtow to the demands of Dixie were all to real throughout the next three months, and then election day came. Barnett might not have been a particularly inspiring candidate, but his running mate Wallace made up for it with loud theatrical displays, shown across the nation, where he attacked Johnson, the Civil Rights Act, and even the late President Kennedy.
The polls and speculation showed every kind of map under the sun. "
Johnson loses Texas!" "
Goldwater wins 400 E. votes!" "
Electoral College to be Deadlocked!" "
Goldwater to lose Arizona, rest of west!" were just a few headlines that ran across August, September, October, and early November. The amount of effort poured into beating Goldwater was nearly eclipsed by that poured into holding the once Solid South.
No one, not the President nor any of the major news organisations, could believe what the results were at first.
Despite their hard campaigning, it was revealed the support for the Dixiecrats was more akin to a few deep puddles then an ocean. Interestingly, they won the exact same 4 states as previous Dixiecrat challenger, Strom Thurmond, did in 1948. Thurmond was one of a few Southerners who not only endorsed them, but worked in getting them his states votes. They won more then three times the popular vote as he did, doing better in nearly every Southern state that Thurmond didn't win sixteen years ago, but they could only win these same four states. Lousiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina. The states Johnson won in the South, sans Georgia where Goldwater made decent inroads, he won by a strong margin.
Barry Goldwater became the first major party nominee to lose every single state in the country. Even his home state Arizona voted against him by a margin of just 137 votes. Even in 1936, the last time a Democrat had won both over 500 electoral votes and his opponents state, the Republican's had at least won a couple of states in their tradition bastion of New England. Not so this year. Goldwater did not run for his Senate seat, which was narrowly won by fellow Republican Paul Fannin, and after the stress of this campaign he decided not to fight his way back to office after Carl Hayden retired in 1968. Longtime Goldwater ally Stephen Shadegg instead contested the election and won that seat.
Johnson, meanwhile, had the satisfaction of further emulating FDR. He had a ubiquitous set of initials, a massive victory over his opponents, and now all he had to do was win a foreign war and get some liberal legislation out. Things were looking very good for Lyndon Johnson right then and there.
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