1964 United States presidential election in California

The 1964 United States presidential election in California took place on November 3, 1964, as part of the 1964 United States presidential election. State voters chose 40 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

1964 United States presidential election in California

← 1960 November 3, 1964 (1964-11-03) 1968 →
Turnout	88.38% (of registered voters) 0.06 pp 66.00% (of eligible voters) 2.77 pp
Nominee Lyndon B. Johnson Barry Goldwater Party Democratic Republican Home state Texas Arizona Running mate Hubert Humphrey William E. Miller Electoral vote 40 0 Popular vote 4,171,877 2,879,108 Percentage 59.11% 40.79%
County Results Johnson   50–60%   60–70%   70–80% Goldwater   50–60%
President before election Lyndon B. Johnson Democratic President-elect Lyndon B. Johnson Democratic

California voted for the incumbent Democratic President, Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, in a landslide over the Republican nominee, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona.

As Johnson won nationally in a massive landslide, taking 61.05% of the vote nationwide, and dominating many Northeastern and Midwestern states by record landslide margins, California weighed in at about 4% more Republican than the national average in the 1964 election. Johnson dominated in liberal Northern California, breaking 60% in many counties and even breaking 70% in Plumas County and the city of San Francisco. However, the Western conservative Goldwater, from neighboring Arizona, appealed to residents of conservative Southern California, where Johnson failed to break his nationwide vote average in a single county. Goldwater indeed won six congressional districts in suburban areas of Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties, and carried two heavily populated Southern California counties outright: Orange County and San Diego County, thus holding Johnson below the 60% mark statewide.

Although California has become a strongly Democratic state in recent elections, this was the only presidential election from 1952 to 1988 where the state was carried by a Democrat. As of the 2024 presidential election, this is also the last time that a Democrat has won the counties of Calaveras, Colusa, Glenn, Kern, Modoc and Tulare. Democrats would not win Nevada County until 2008; and Inyo County until 2020.

California was Barry Goldwater's best state in the modern day "blue wall", which were states won by the Democrats in every presidential election from 1992 to 2012. Johnson was the only Democrat prior to 1992 to carry all of the states of that future "blue wall". This is also the most recent presidential election where Los Angeles County voted more Republican than the state as a whole, as well as the last in which California did not register the most votes cast by a state (New York had more).

Results

Electoral results

Presidential candidate	Party	Home state	Popular vote		Electoral vote	Running mate
			Count	Percentage		Vice-presidential candidate	Home state	Electoral vote
Lyndon B. Johnson	Democratic	Texas	4,171,877	59.11%	40	Hubert Humphrey	Minnesota	40
Barry Goldwater	Republican	Arizona	2,879,108	40.79%	0	William E. Miller	New York	0
Write-in candidates	—	—	5,410	0.08%	0	—	—	0
Eric Hass	Socialist Labor	New York	489	0.01%	0	Henning A. Blomen	Massachusetts	0
Clifton DeBerry	Socialist Workers	New York	378	0.01%	0	Ed Shaw		0
E. Harold Munn	Prohibition Party	Michigan	305	0.00%	0	Mark R. Shaw	Massachusetts	0
Kirby J. Hensley	Universal Party	California	19	0.00%	0	Roscoe MacKenna		0
Total			7,057,586	100%	40			40
Needed to win					270			270

Results by county

County	Lyndon B. Johnson Democratic		Barry Goldwater Republican		Various candidates Other parties		Margin		Total votes cast
	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%
Alameda	283,833	66.42%	142,998	33.46%	509	0.12%	140,835	32.96%	427,340
Alpine	91	42.33%	124	57.67%	0	0.00%	-33	-15.34%	215
Amador	3,410	66.89%	1,682	32.99%	6	0.12%	1,728	33.90%	5,098
Butte	20,831	51.54%	19,574	48.43%	14	0.03%	1,257	3.11%	40,419
Calaveras	3,145	58.27%	2,244	41.58%	8	0.15%	901	16.69%	5,397
Colusa	2,790	60.57%	1,811	39.32%	5	0.11%	979	21.25%	4,606
Contra Costa	113,071	63.44%	65,011	36.47%	163	0.09%	48,060	26.97%	178,245
Del Norte	3,652	63.77%	2,075	36.23%	0	0.00%	1,577	27.54%	5,727
El Dorado	8,810	60.30%	5,775	39.53%	25	0.17%	3,035	20.77%	14,610
Fresno	89,375	65.57%	46,792	34.33%	141	0.10%	42,583	31.24%	136,308
Glenn	3,937	54.01%	3,351	45.97%	2	0.02%	586	8.04%	7,290
Humboldt	25,515	66.27%	12,909	33.53%	75	0.20%	12,606	32.74%	38,499
Imperial	11,143	51.85%	10,330	48.06%	19	0.09%	813	3.79%	21,492
Inyo	3,161	53.44%	2,751	46.51%	3	0.05%	410	6.93%	5,915
Kern	64,174	58.71%	45,014	41.18%	120	0.11%	19,160	17.53%	109,308
Kings	13,073	69.39%	5,753	30.54%	14	0.07%	7,320	38.85%	18,840
Lake	4,680	56.37%	3,616	43.56%	6	0.07%	1,064	12.81%	8,302
Lassen	4,072	65.67%	2,124	34.25%	5	0.08%	1,948	31.42%	6,201
Los Angeles	1,568,300	57.43%	1,161,067	42.52%	1,551	0.05%	407,233	14.91%	2,730,918
Madera	9,391	67.75%	4,461	32.18%	10	0.07%	4,930	35.57%	13,862
Marin	46,462	61.65%	28,682	38.06%	220	0.29%	17,780	23.59%	75,364
Mariposa	1,704	57.41%	1,264	42.59%	0	0.00%	440	14.82%	2,968
Mendocino	11,869	65.12%	6,322	34.68%	36	0.20%	5,547	30.44%	18,227
Merced	19,431	68.74%	8,814	31.18%	24	0.08%	10,617	37.56%	28,269
Modoc	1,972	58.73%	1,386	41.27%	0	0.00%	586	17.46%	3,358
Mono	666	43.93%	850	56.07%	0	0.00%	-184	-12.14%	1,516
Monterey	40,093	61.83%	24,579	37.90%	172	0.27%	15,514	23.93%	64,844
Napa	19,580	62.74%	11,567	37.06%	63	0.20%	8,013	25.68%	31,210
Nevada	6,397	56.52%	4,899	43.29%	22	0.19%	1,498	13.23%	11,318
Orange	176,539	44.01%	224,196	55.89%	430	0.10%	-47,657	-11.88%	401,165
Placer	18,256	65.96%	9,389	33.92%	31	0.12%	8,867	32.04%	27,676
Plumas	4,019	70.35%	1,686	29.51%	8	0.14%	2,333	40.84%	5,713
Riverside	80,528	56.79%	61,165	43.14%	95	0.07%	19,363	13.65%	141,788
Sacramento	149,668	65.68%	77,871	34.17%	332	0.15%	71,797	31.51%	227,871
San Benito	3,779	60.59%	2,444	39.19%	14	0.22%	1,335	21.40%	6,237
San Bernardino	123,012	57.11%	92,145	42.78%	243	0.11%	30,867	14.33%	215,400
San Diego	211,808	49.69%	214,445	50.31%	33	0.00%	-2,637	-0.62%	426,286
San Francisco	230,758	71.24%	92,994	28.71%	156	0.05%	137,764	42.53%	323,908
San Joaquin	59,210	61.78%	36,546	38.13%	83	0.09%	22,664	23.65%	95,839
San Luis Obispo	22,252	59.84%	14,906	40.08%	28	0.08%	7,346	19.76%	37,186
San Mateo	140,978	64.32%	77,916	35.55%	297	0.13%	63,062	28.77%	219,191
Santa Barbara	48,381	55.94%	38,020	43.96%	85	0.10%	10,361	11.98%	86,486
Santa Clara	202,249	63.10%	117,420	36.63%	858	0.27%	84,829	26.47%	320,527
Santa Cruz	26,714	58.53%	18,836	41.27%	94	0.20%	7,878	17.26%	45,644
Shasta	19,142	67.52%	9,178	32.37%	30	0.11%	9,964	35.15%	28,350
Sierra	828	66.72%	413	33.28%	0	0.00%	415	33.44%	1,241
Siskiyou	9,126	63.66%	5,186	36.18%	23	0.16%	3,940	27.48%	14,335
Solano	34,930	69.53%	15,263	30.38%	47	0.09%	19,667	39.15%	50,240
Sonoma	44,354	61.49%	27,677	38.37%	105	0.14%	16,677	23.12%	72,136
Stanislaus	43,078	66.14%	21,973	33.74%	77	0.12%	21,105	32.40%	65,128
Sutter	6,787	48.33%	7,241	51.56%	16	0.11%	-454	-3.23%	14,044
Tehama	6,928	60.42%	4,529	39.50%	10	0.08%	2,399	20.92%	11,467
Trinity	2,175	63.25%	1,252	36.41%	12	0.34%	923	26.84%	3,439
Tulare	33,974	60.08%	22,527	39.83%	51	0.09%	11,447	20.25%	56,552
Tuolumne	4,939	63.16%	2,861	36.59%	20	0.25%	2,078	26.57%	7,820
Ventura	57,805	58.84%	40,264	40.99%	169	0.17%	17,541	17.85%	98,238
Yolo	18,266	69.52%	7,976	30.36%	32	0.12%	10,290	39.16%	26,274
Yuba	6,766	57.64%	4,964	42.29%	9	0.07%	1,802	15.35%	11,739
Total	4,171,877	59.11%	2,879,108	40.79%	6,601	0.10%	1,292,769	18.32%	7,057,586

Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic

• Butte
• Calaveras
• Colusa
• Inyo
• Glenn
• Imperial
• Kern
• Lake
• Marin
• Mariposa
• Modoc
• Monterey
• Napa
• Nevada
• Riverside
• San Benito
• San Bernardino
• San Joaquin
• San Luis Obispo
• San Mateo
• Santa Cruz
• Santa Clara
• Santa Barbara
• Tehama
• Sonoma
• Tulare
• Yuba

References

1. "Historical Voter Registration and Participation in Statewide General Elections 1910-2018" (PDF). California Secretary of State. Retrieved May 5, 2022.
2. "California Election Results". The New York Times. November 3, 2020.
3. "1964 Presidential General Election Results - California". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved October 8, 2013.