What if, as expected, Barry Goldwater lost the 1964 California primary to Nelson Rockefeller? Rockefeller had mounted a strong advertising campaign in the state and Goldwater's extremist positions seemed to put him behind. The primary was a big delegate haul and was seen both at the time and afterwards as pivotal to the chances of a Goldwater victory on the first ballot at the 1964 Republican convention. The standard AH.com PoD of Happy Rockefeller not having a baby before the California primary would probably be enough to allow Rockefeller to get a narrow win as it reminded voters of Rockefeller's personal life and remarriage.
What would be the effects of a Rockefeller win? Contrary to some alternate histories I've seen, this would probably not result in Nelson Rockefeller being the 1964 Republican nominee. Rockefeller simply did not have the delegates or support to win the nomination, though his victory in California could have kept Goldwater from winning the nomination outright. Even Rockefeller acknowledged that, he released a widely published brochure that showed Goldwater standing alone outside while Rockefeller was pictured with Richard Nixon, George Romney, Henry Cabot Lodge and William Scranton. Before the Storm says "the purpose of the pamphlet was to hint that Rockefeller would not necessarily be the leader who stopped Goldwater-that by voting for Rockefeller's delegation, you were actually voting for whichever person the moderates anointed at the convention to stop Goldwater from his first-ballot victory."
Of those moderate candidates, I would consider Governor Scranton of Pennsylvania to be the most likely candidate-he had the least baggage and was a popular Midwestern moderate, and he was the OTL choice as the leader of a last minute stop Goldwater effort. Scranton would have a far greater chance if Goldwater did not win California and get 86 delegates from the primary. However, Goldwater's superior delegate organization and dominance in the South and West would still put him close to victory, though it is possible he would fall short at the first-ballot, and hundreds of Goldwater's delegates were determined to vote for him no matter what, come hell and high water, with such messages of support as "WILL VOTE FOR YOU IF MY VOTE IS THE ONLY VOTE YOU OBTAIN" and "I AM PREPARED TO STAND BY YOU AS RESOLUTELY AS DID GENERAL THOMAS FOR THE UNION AT CHICAMAUGA."
So, 1964 goes to a brokered convention, and while Goldwater does come first, he falls short of a majority. Scranton is the moderate candidate and ultimately wins the nomination. According to polling by the LBJ campaign, Scranton was the strongest Republican candidate. Even Scranton though would likely lose in 1964, given how LBJ had peace and prosperity, was popular and had Kennedy's martyrdom.
How would 1964 go down-ballot? What would be the results? What would be the effects of no Goldwater nomination? Longer term, how would the 1968 election be affected? Would Ronald Reagan still be a major political figure without his famous 'A Time For Choosing' speech? How would the conservative movement be impacted-would they still end up dominating the Republican Party? Would the realignment which resulted in states like New England states like New Jersey and Vermont being solidly Democratic states and the South turning to the Republicans still occur? What if?
 
  1. Recycling a post of mine from 2015:

    ---

    Even with California--and yes, I know it was a winner-take-all state--Rockefeller would be far short of a majority.

    One reason: Goldwater's support in the South. 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. George Gilder and Bruce Chapman, *The Party That Lost Its Head*, p. 184 (the book was written when both Gilder and Chapman were liberal Republicans). 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...

    In OTL the vote at the convention was as follows:

    Barry Goldwater - 883 (67.51%)
    William Scranton - 214 (16.36%)
    Nelson Rockefeller - 114 (8.72%)
    George W. Romney - 41 (3.14%)
    Margaret Chase Smith - 27 (2.06%)
    Walter Judd - 22 (1.68%)
    Hiram Fong - 5 (0.38%)
    Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. - 2 (0.15%)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_history_of_Barry_Goldwater

    California only had 86 votes, so that if Goldwater had lost California, he would still--if other delegates had voted the same way--have had about 140 delegates to spare. Now it is true that some delegates who were undecided and in the end voted for Goldwater might not have done so had he lost in California. But that enough would have done so to cost Goldwater the nomination is questionable (after all, the California primary was late in the season, and most delegates--even those not formally pledged--had probably already made up their minds, or at least would not be dissuaded by what after all would be a *narrow* Goldwater defeat in California.) And what is much more questionable is that enough of them would have been persuaded to vote not only against Goldwater but *for Rockefeller* who was absolutely hated by the Right and who everyone knew would be at least as divisive a candidate for the party as Goldwater.

    If Goldwater loses narrowly in California, it is quite plausible that he will still win the nomination. It is also fairly plausible that he will fall a little short and the convention will seek a compromise candidate who will at least be acceptable to both liberal and conservative Republicans--the most obvious name being Nixon. Now I know that many people think that Nixon would not be willing to take the nomination in 1964, that he saw that LBJ was going to win, etc. The evidence is not so clear, however. Let me quote from an old soc.history.what-if post of mine:

    ***

    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."

    (My apologies for relying so much on Gilder and Chapman's book; it is both
    biased and dated, but it's the only detailed book about 1964 I have with
    me right now, and anyway, whatever one thinks of their interpretations,
    the *facts* they set forth do indicate that Nixon was at least keeping his
    options open in a way that suggests that he did not regard the nomination
    as an empty prize.) https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/Ghzn1YByCDA/ww4p3unAnz8J

    ***

    Anyway, to sum up my view: If Rockefeller had narrowly won the California primary, that *might* have prevented Goldwater from being nominated, though this is by no means certain. It is *very* unlikely, however, that it would be enough to get Rockefeller himself nominated. He was just too unpopular with everyone in the party except his outright supporters. To give him any chance at all, you have to go back at least as far as New Hampshire, where Lodge's write-in victory dealt Rockefeller a blow from which he never really recovered. (It was a blow to Goldwater, too, but one from which he could recover much more easily.)
 
Thanks @David T for building on my points. Rockefeller was not going to win with a PoD in California, but a Rockefeller win could have stopped Goldwater from getting a first ballot win and allowed another moderate candidate to win. Nixon 1964 is interesting, though he had very little support at the time. For a book on 1964, may I suggest Before the Storm by Rick Perlstein, it is very good.
 
I think Goldwater was viewed as the bridge candidate between:

1) the pro-segregation Republicans, who would be more likely to think of themselves as anti-civil rights (this particular incarnation, whereas some alternate, pristine version of civil rights they'd be more than happy to support), and

2) economic conservatives.

And Goldwater accomplished this bridge with his version of 'libertarianism.'

*of course the Democratic party also had their pro-segregation members and supporters, certainly back then.
 
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@David T as usual has hit the nail on the head convincingly; losing California would have damaged Goldwater's chances in San Francisco, but it would have done virtually nil to improve Rockefeller's chances.
 
If Goldwater loses, some Dixiecrat (most likely George Wallace) would most run as a third-party spoiler.
 
If Goldwater loses, some Dixiecrat (most likely George Wallace) would most run as a third-party spoiler.
True, there aren't many Republican capable of receiving the nomination who would have the appeal to Southern Democrats that Goldwater did, and Wallace was more or less already running until the polls showed that he would be running behind Goldwater in the South. The question would become how influential Wallace's candidacy would be as when he "declared" or was prepping he was already behind in terms of getting access to the ballots (about 25 States I think was the expected figure), though there were active movements in the Deep South to replace Lyndon Johnson either with George Wallace or Unpledged Electors (Alabama and Louisiana come to mind) which could solve some of those issues.

Ultimately though, again, it would depend on who the Republicans nominate in lieu of Goldwater, and how much support said candidate would be able to draw from George Wallace's supporters.
 
Who would be the Republican nominee? Nixon could emerge as a compromise candidate, and @DavidT pointed out he may have been trying to become that candidate, but he still had the 'loser' image and it may have been too soon after 1960 and 1962 for him to be nominated, if he even wanted. Scranton was the establishment choice and could have also been nominated in a brokered convention, he was a good moderate and would be an electable candidate as a moderate, popular Midwest Governor, though he would still have lost because LBJ was so popular and had JFK's martyrdom to back him up.
 

bguy

Donor
Who would be the Republican nominee? Nixon could emerge as a compromise candidate, and @DavidT pointed out he may have been trying to become that candidate, but he still had the 'loser' image and it may have been too soon after 1960 and 1962 for him to be nominated, if he even wanted. Scranton was the establishment choice and could have also been nominated in a brokered convention, he was a good moderate and would be an electable candidate as a moderate, popular Midwest Governor, though he would still have lost because LBJ was so popular and had JFK's martyrdom to back him up.

Nixon probably makes the most sense as a compromise candidate as he is the best known and broadly acceptable to all factions within the party. That said Goldwater did personally like Scranton (Scranton had been his commanding officer in the Air Force Reserves) and trusted him on budget issues, so if it becomes obvious that Goldwater can't win the nomination then he might be willing to throw his support to Scranton.

If Nixon gets the nomination he presumably gets clobbered in the general election which should be the end of his political career. Does that clear the way for Goldwater to win the Republican nomination in 1968? (That's probably the one year where it might just be possible for Goldwater to win a presidential election.)
 
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