Let's suppose John F. Kennedy has a health scare in 1960 just before or near the start of the primaries. Nothing major, maybe his Addison's flares up for a bit, but it's enough to keep him off the campaign trail until after the primaries, so let's say Kennedy bows out gracefully in the hopes that he can recuperate for 1964.
Of course, in this scenario, the Democrats, the Democrats would pick Humphrey and probably Johnson at the DNC. Nixon would trounce Humphrey in the general, as Humphrey would come off as too much of a liberal compared to Nixon, the centrist. The Democrats would likely retain Congress, but Nixon and Lodge would nevertheless be in the White House for the next four years.
Now, in this scenario, LBJ would still be Senate Majority Leader, but he wouldn't be able to do much to stop JFK from running again. His guy already failed dramatically, after all, and the party doesn't want another Stevenson situation on their hands. JFK gets the nod, against Johnson's best wishes, and he picks someone like Scoop Jackson as his running mate.
Considering that the Republicans have been in power for the past 12 years at this point, and JFK is a change from all that, would it not be fair to say that Kennedy could win the general and hold the White House for the next four years at least, possibly eight?
How would JFK govern in this scenario? Since the GOP would be responsible ITTL for passing civil rights legislation, the Dixiecrats probably wouldn't split off from the party, and the GOP would likely retain the black vote. How would that affect things?
Additionally, Nixon would probably accept his defeat after four years in power, so I doubt he'd have that much swing over the 1968 primaries. Who would gain the nod in 1968?
How would the religious right movement be affected by this? Imo, if JFK wins in 1964 and again in 1968, he'd at least manage to keep Catholics aligned to the Democrats, and if RFK stayed alive due to butterflies, he'd probably end up gaining evangelical support if he decided to run, especially if he had a southerner on the ticket. But that might not be the case.
How does the GOP evolve too? Imo if they came to power in the 1980s they would undoubtedly adopt neoliberal economics, as they're the party of business and Keynesianism had failed by that point anyway, but I feel like they'd still be quite socially liberal without the religious right in control. At the very least, the Equal Rights Amendment would be ratified, homosexuality would be decriminalised, and there'd be a far better response to the AIDS crisis, but they'd probably do a lot more in terms of socially liberal legislation that I can't think of at the moment.
Anyway, is it feasible that JFK could have won in 1964 if he hadn't run in 1960?