“Meet Dick Nixon!”
To Use This Document
With Your Students
Date
1960
Description
"Meet Dick Nixon!" poster. Campaign poster for Richard Nixon explaining that he is coming to Suffolk County to the Long Island Arena in Commack on Wednesday evening, Sept. 28th at 8PM. "Meet Our Next President Richard M. Nixon." Lists other political leaders who will be attending the event. Upper right corner-image of Nixon's head. During the 1960 presidential campaign, one of the closest elections in US history, both the Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy and the Republican candidate Richard Nixon recognized the strategic importance of the rapidly expanding suburbs of Long Island. Nassau-Suffolk had the fastest regional population growth in the nation in the previous decade, and both candidates made the newly built Long Island Arena in Commack a prime destination for their campaigns. Newsday reported that on November 5, 1960, Kennedy spoke “to a roaring reception of 9,000 Long Islanders” inside the arena, and 5,000 more in the overflow outside the venue. According to the newspaper, this was “at least equal to the crowd” drawn by Nixon on September 28, 1960. Ultimately, the Nassau-Suffolk vote went to Nixon that year, 56.3% to Kennedy’s 43.7%, but this was a significant improvement for the Democratic Party on Long Island from 1956 when President Eisenhower had received 71.5% of the vote. And those numbers greatly helped Kennedy win the New York State electoral votes, a key part of his narrow victory total.
Type
Broadside
Region
Long Island
Era
Postwar United States
Topic
Communication, Elections, Government
Repository
Identifier
2003.016.0025
Source
Long Island Museum, Stony Brook, NY, Gift of William Ayres, 2003
Rights
This image is provided for education and research purposes. Rights may be reserved. Responsibility for securing permissions to distribute, publish, reproduce or other use rests with the user. For additional information, see our Copyright and Use Statement.