THE ELECTION: An Old Combination

Happy days, as Franklin Roosevelt's theme song went, were here again. And they got here again in a way that F.D.R. could well have appreciated: a Democratic candidate, partly by force of personality, partly by piecing back together the power blocs that had been shattered by Republican Dwight Eisenhower, was the U.S.'s President-elect.

Democrat Jack Kennedy won by 1) rolling up huge pluralities in the big cities of the states that counted most, and 2) by holding on to most of the restive but still Democratic South.

Big-City Trend. One by one, the U.S.'s major cities gave Kennedy votes enough to assure victory in key states. Time after time, Richard Nixon inched back in nonmetropolitan areas—but rarely by enough. By pre-election estimates, Philadelphia had to go to Kennedy by at least 200,000 for him to win in Pennsylvania; the city went by 326,000. Although Nixon won 52 of Pennsylvania's 67 counties, the state went down the drain for the Republicans. Kennedy carried New York City with 63% of the vote, far more than enough to take New York State's 45 electoral votes. Nixon ran well in outstate Michigan—but Kennedy grabbed a big lead in Detroit and held on. It was Los Angeles—always considered Nixon's stronghold—that gave Kennedy California.

In states where the metropolitan trend was either slowed or reversed, the results proved how much Kennedy depended on the city vote. New Jersey had been figured as a landslide for Kennedy—largely on the basis of a pre-election estimate of at least a 100,000 Kennedy plurality in Jersey City. But the Hudson County machine fell down on the job—and Kennedy had the scare of his life. Again, Ohio was figured as a Kennedy cinch—but Cleveland fell short of its expected Democratic plurality, and the state went to Nixon.

What happened in the cities to give Kennedy his vast advantage? In many ways it was a reversion to voting habits temporarily obliterated by the personal popularity of Dwight Eisenhower. As in Roosevelt's day, ethnic, racial and religious minorities once again voted heavily Democratic. It was also in the cities that Kennedy's personality caught on most decisively. There were strong indications that Eisenhower, had he started campaigning three weeks before Election Day, might have stemmed the tide: his Cleveland appearance was almost certainly a major factor in saving Ohio for Nixon.