Nixon struck many voters as more mature and experienced than Kennedy and led in the polls after the national conventions.īoth candidates sought the support of the steadily growing suburban population and, for the first time, television became the dominant source of information for voters. He chose Henry Cabot Lodge, US ambassador to the United Nations, as his running mate. He pointed to the peace and prosperity of the Eisenhower administration and assured the voters that he would maintain American prestige, leadership, and military strength. Nixon was 47-years-old, just four years older than Kennedy. The Republican nominee, Vice President Richard M. He declared that the United States would have the will and the strength to resist communism around the world. His success there launched him toward a first ballot victory at the national convention in Los Angeles-although he did not reach the 761 votes required for the nomination until the final state in the roll call, Wyoming.Īfter choosing Texas senator Lyndon Johnson as his running mate, Kennedy told the convention delegates that he would get the nation moving again. On May 10, he won a solid victory in the Democratic primary in overwhelmingly Protestant West Virginia. John Fitzgerald Kennedy captured the Democratic nomination despite his youth, a seeming lack of experience in foreign affairs, and his Catholic faith. Public opinion polls revealed that more than half the American people thought war with the Soviet Union was inevitable. In Cuba, the revolutionary regime of Fidel Castro became a close ally of the Soviet Union, heightening fears of communist subversion in the Western Hemisphere. Eisenhower's planned trip to Moscow and the collapse of a summit meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. The incident led to the cancellation of President Dwight D. Three years later, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over Soviet territory and its pilot captured.

American leaders warned that the nation was falling behind communist countries in science and technology. In 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite to orbit Earth. The 1960 election campaign was dominated by rising Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Voting blocs