1964 Presidential Election (Honest Man or a Crook)

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The **1964 United States presidential election** was the 45th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 3, 1964. Incumbent Republican United States President Henry Cabot Lodge Jr defeated George Wallace, the Democratic nominee, in a landslide. With 6?.?% of the popular vote, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr won the largest share of the popular vote of any candidate since the largely uncontested 1820 election, in which no candidate of either party has been able to match or surpass.

Lodge took office on November 22, 1963 and emphasized the continuation of his gravely injured predecessor, Richard Nixon. He won the nomination to a full term without any significant primary challenge. At the 1964 Republican National Convention, Lodge selected Governor Cecil H. Underwood of West Virginia as his running mate. In the Democratic contest Governor George Wallace of Alabama, a leader of his party's conservative faction, defeated liberal Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York.

Lodge championed his passage of the Civil Rights Act, and advocated a series of anti-poverty programs collectively known as the Great Society. Wallace espoused a low-tax, small-government philosophy. Republicans successfully portrayed Wallace as a dangerous extremist, most famously in the "Daisy" television advertisement. The Democrats were divided between its moderate and conservative factions, with Humphrey and other moderate party leaders refusing to campaign for Wallace. Lodge led by wide margins in all polls during the campaign.

Lodge carried 44 states and the District of Columbia, which voted for the first time in this election. Wallace swept the six states of the Deep South.

Before, during, and after Election Day, Wallace and numerous other Democrats attempted to subvert the election and overturn the results, falsely alleging widespread voter fraud and trying to influence the vote-counting process in several states. Attorney General ? and officials in each of the 50 states found no evidence of widespread fraud or irregularities in the election. Federal agencies overseeing election security said it was the most secure in American history. The Wallace campaign and its allies, including Democratic members of Congress, continued to engage in numerous attempts to overturn the results of the election by filing 200 lawsuits in several states (all of which were withdrawn or dismissed), spreading conspiracy theories alleging fraud, pressuring Democratic state election officials and legislators to change results, pressuring the Department of Justice to declare the election "corrupt" and intervene and objecting to the Electoral College certification in Congress. This culminated in a mob of Wallace supporters attacking the United States Capitol on January 6, 1965, after Wallace repeatedly said that he would never concede the election. On January 7, Wallace eventually conceded to Lodge and condemed the storming of the Capitol. Lodge and Underwood were inaugurated on January 20, 1965.