re: #258 Dark_Falcon

More that Johnson lost the Deep South for having pushed the law through. Johnson still won Texas (his home state), Arkansas, Florida (the lower 40% of which was no longer really ‘southern’ by 1964), and the ‘Upper South’ former Confederate states of North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee. Most of the Deep South voters who pulled the lever for Barry Goldwater still didn’t really like the Republican Party in 1964.

True enough, it was just the initial step which caused the GOP to realize the electoral gold mine available to them by pursuing the Southern Strategy. Fifty years later, its still paying dividends except in Presidential elections.