1966: The Most Consequential Election You’ve Never Heard Of
The 1964 election saw one of the greatest landslides in American history. Lyndon Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater 61 percent to 38 percent in the popular vote and by a margin of 486 to 52 in the electoral college. Goldwater only carried Arizona and five states in the deep south who resented the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The Democrats won a similar landslide in the Congressional races. The Democrats ended up with a 68 to 32 seat majority in the U.S. Senate and a 295 to 140 seat majority in the U.S. House. Johnson’s victory even swept Democrat Clair Callan to victory in Nebraska’s red Congressional District 1.
The Democrats held more seats than at any time since 1936. Most importantly, the Democrats had upended the conservative coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats who had controlled Congress since 1938. This opened the door for a rare era of progressive reform.
A divided Republican party had self destructed in 1964 by nominating the extreme Barry Goldwater. The Republican nominee talked about making Social Security voluntary and using nuclear weapons in Vietnam. Numerous elected Republicans refused to endorse Goldwater and millions of Republicans crossed over to vote for Johnson.
Many of the pundits in the establishment media wrote the Republican party’s political obituary. “Barry Goldwater not only lost the presidential election yesterday but the conservative cause as well,” the New York Times’ Scotty Reston wrote, “He has wrecked his party for a long time to come and is not even likely to control the wreckage.”
In embracing conservatism, declared his Times colleague Tom Wicker, the “Republicans strayed from the simple reality that they cannot win in this era of American history except as a me too party. With tragic inevitability,” he wrote, they “cracked like a pane of glass.”
“If the Republicans become a conservative party, advocating reactionary changes at home, they will remain a minority party indefinitely,” wrote the Los Angeles Times.
The 89th Congress in 1965–1966 is regarded as one of the most productive in American history. Its landmark legislation included Medicare, Medicaid, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Higher Education Act, Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Freedom of Information Act.
A backlash began to set in by 1966. By the 1960s, most unionized workers had moved into the the middle class and paid taxes. Johnson’s Great Society programs largely benefited people who were not in the middle class: minorities, the unemployed, the elderly and the sick. The middle class was required to pay a larger portion of its earnings to fund these new programs.
A large group of blue collar whites had been the beneficiaries of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs but instead of getting benefits from Johnson’s programs, they were paying for the benefits of others. By the fall of 1966, this brief era of progressive reform was drawing to a close due to higher taxes and growing doubts about the ability of the federal government to meet its expensive promises. There was also dissatisfaction with the rising costs of the Vietnam War and the higher inflation that it generated.
During the 1966 election cycle, the Republicans exploited tensions over the Great Society programs, civil rights, Vietnam and inflation. In addition, the Republicans targeted freshmen Democrats like Callan from the Midwest who had won seats in Republican districts in 1964.
Former Vice President and two time loser Richard Nixon presented himself as the leader of the opposition. Nixon had the aura of a loser since he had lost the 1960 presidential election to John F. Kennedy and the 1962 California gubernatorial election to Pat Brown. “If we don’t have a significant win this fall, you can forget about the Republican party. The election will determine the survival of the Republican party and the two party system in this country,” Nixon told reporters.
Nixon campaigned in 35 states for 105 candidates. His appearances for Republican candidates got them more television exposure and helped them raise money. Most importantly for Nixon, he was building support for another presidential campaign. Nixon’s hope to make himself the unofficial leader of the opposition became a reality when Johnson attacked him in personal terms in the closing days of the campaign.
Nixon’s efforts paid off. The Republicans gained 47 seats in the House and 3 seats in the Senate. This was well above the predictions of most pundits, and higher than the 33 seat average opposition party gain in midterm elections since 1934. The conservative coalition had regained its majority in Congress. Any hopes of additional liberal legislation were dashed.
One of the losers on election night 1966 was Representative Clair Callan of the 1st Congressional district in Nebraska. He was defeated by Republican Robert Denney. Callan is the last Democrat to hold that seat in the U.S. House.
At the state level, the Republicans gained a net of eight governorships and 557 state legislative seats. One of the big winners was Ronald Reagan who knocked out Pat Brown and was elected governor of California. He was immediately seen as a rising star by many Republicans and the press.
The 1966 election was the most consequential election you have never heard of. The era of progressive reform established by the 1964 Johnson landslide was over. It laid the foundation for Nixon’s election as president in 1968 and began the long conservative era. Republicans won 6 out of the next 7 presidential elections between 1968 to 1988 and 7 out of the next 10 presidential elections between 1968 and 2004.
There were no significant progressive reforms again until the passage of the Affordable Care Act during the Obama administration in 2010. The collapse of the George W. Bush presidency ended the long conservative era that began in 1966. The Republicans and their billionaire allies are ready to do whatever it takes to begin another conservative era, whether we want it or not. The future is up to us.
Sources consulted:
Ambrose, Stephen. Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician 1962–1972. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989.
Perlstein, Rick. Before The Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus. New York: Hill and Wang, 2001.
Zelizer, Julian. The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for The Great Society. New York: Penguin Press, 2015.