April 5, 1960
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
The polls had been closed for an hour. John Kennedy sipped chicken noodle soup in his hotel suite, watching the early primary returns trickle in. So far, Senator Hubert Humphrey had a slim lead.
Kennedy wasn’t concerned. The reports were from rural farming counties, Humphrey strongholds. No need to worry. Not yet.
But others in the third-floor suite at Milwaukee’s Pfister Hotel were anxious. The polls all had Kennedy winning Wisconsin, but the real question was: By how much? Would it be a landslide or a nail-biter?
After New Hampshire, it seemed that Kennedy had all the momentum. And with the money JFK spent in the state, this had the earmarks of a blowout. Anything less would be considered a disappointment.
Wisconsin was the first real test for Kennedy—the first time he’d face a serious challenge. For weeks, JFK and Humphrey had waged an all-out war. Kennedy had the looks, the money, and the organization. What Humphrey had was heart and passion.
Humphrey later wrote that he knew Jack’s “well-financed campaign was filled with beautiful people.” His campaign had been a slog—“no match for the glamour of Jackie Kennedy and the other Kennedy women.” Humphrey was lucky to “get a couple of dozen folks to coffee parties in a farm home or in a worker’s house…” in an urban area. Meanwhile, “the Kennedys, with engraved invitations, were packing ballrooms in Milwaukee.”
“Mink never wore so well, cloth coats so poorly,” Humphrey wrote.
Of all the Democratic primaries, Wisconsin was the one where people could vote for candidates of either party. Would Republicans cast ballots for Humphrey to help him win because they believed Nixon would have an easier time against the Minnesota senator in the fall? Could a big Kennedy win prove he was really a national candidate? No one wanted a long, drawn-out battle. So, would delegates in other states commit to the winner of the Wisconsin primary to prevent a prolonged primary contest that had the potential to weaken the party?
New Hampshire didn’t much care about Kennedy’s religion, but his Catholic faith played more of a role in the Midwest. Ads had appeared in local weekly newspapers throughout Wisconsin pushing Protestants to vote for Humphrey.
Kennedy finished his soup and was feeling more optimistic. Updated returns had pushed him ahead of Humphrey. If he could win at least seven of the state’s ten congressional districts, he’d be writing Humphrey’s political obituary. If not, the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination would head back to the trenches.
Family and friends milled around the Kennedy suite. But John’s brother and campaign manager, Robert, was at the communications center. He was exhausted. He had thrown everything he could at Humphrey, who didn’t have the money to run a similar media-driven campaign. Humphrey had attacked Kennedy for spending too much money, calling his campaign “the most highly financed, the most plush, the most extravagant in the history of politics in the United States.”
Kennedy countered him simply, explaining that campaigns were expensive. His money allowed him to reach voters in innovative ways. In one of his first ads in Wisconsin, JFK relaxed in a chair with a globe and a nameplate reading “Senator John F. Kennedy” on a nearby table.
Kennedy looked comfortably into the camera and introduced himself to Wisconsin voters.
“The Wisconsin primary has had a great tradition stretching back to the days of Governor La Follette in 1905, who helped design this law in order to permit the people of this state, as well as the people of other states, to participate in the selection of their presidential nominee,” Kennedy said.
He had traveled all over America—and Wisconsin—and during that time, he said, “I’ve come to have an image of Americans as courageous, confident and persevering. It is with that image that I begin this campaign.”
It was short, sweet, and unique, and beamed directly into voters’ living rooms via television.
Humphrey didn’t have money for anything but a scrappy whistle-stop and newspaper campaign, attacking Kennedy’s position on just about every issue.
He slammed JFK for being the only Democratic senator not to have voted to censure former Wisconsin senator Joe McCarthy, whose conduct as chairman of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations brought shame to the entire body. McCarthy was notorious for bullying witnesses who testified before the committee, which was investigating communist activity in the United States. McCarthy was a close friend of JFK’s father, Joe Kennedy, himself a fervent anti-communist. McCarthy also was a frequent guest at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.
Again, Kennedy replied simply. He’d been in the hospital when the Senate voted on McCarthy.
Humphrey pointed out that Joe Kennedy contributed money to the Eisenhower-Nixon ticket in 1952.
“Hell, he’s a businessman. He gave to everybody,” JFK said about his father.
When there were insinuations that JFK’s brother Robert was “buying votes” in Wisconsin, JFK snapped. “Do you know how many voters there are in Wisconsin? I know we’re rich, but not that rich. [Humphrey] talks about me, about my family, about my friends, the only thing he won’t discuss are the issues. Son-of-a-bitch,” Kennedy told members of his campaign team.
Robert Kennedy left the bickering to the candidates and focused on crafting his brother’s media image. John’s charisma and good looks appealed to a new generation of voters. Kennedy campaign ads were sharp and professional, and the voters who saw him on television longed to meet him in person. Old Joe Kennedy loved seeing the magic work.
“We’re going to sell Jack like soap flakes,” he boasted.
It looked like the work was paying off. As he watched the television news reports, Kennedy knew he was well on his way to winning the primary. The room lit up with cheers.
At the end of the count, Kennedy collected 476,024 votes to Humphrey’s 366,753, or almost 57 percent of the ballots. Kennedy tried to spin the results. Six out of ten districts was a victory, he said, and “anything else would be gravy.”
But the race was uncomfortably close. Kennedy captured the districts with large Catholic voter blocs. Humphrey’s districts were predominantly Protestant.
With the primary victory, Kennedy took a measured—but not conclusive—step toward the Democratic presidential nomination. If JFK had won more decisively, the cash-strapped Humphrey might have surrendered right there.
But Humphrey said he wasn’t ready to give up on the Democratic contest—much to the disappointment of the Kennedy camp.
Describing Wisconsin as “a sort of warmup,” Humphrey said he’d “be very much alive, politically” in the next primary: West Virginia.
“I don’t feel injured by the results here. I feel, in fact, encouraged. Another week here and we might have won it,” he said.
As the campaign moved on, the West Virginia primary on May 10 would be a bone-crushing showdown. The rural coal-mining state was approximately 95 percent Protestant. Kennedy’s religion was becoming a cutting-edge issue.
Before the Wisconsin primary, polls suggested a sizable Kennedy lead over Humphrey in West Virginia. But that lead disappeared overnight.
Some advisers urged Kennedy to skip West Virginia. His father agreed. West Virginia, he said, “is a nothing state and they’ll kill him over the Catholic thing.”
But JFK wanted to confront the religious bigotry issue head-on. If he didn’t call it out soon, the shadow would follow him for the rest of the election season.
No, JFK had to overcome anti-Catholic prejudice, or he might as well quit now. Humphrey might pull ahead of him, or maybe the political bosses would make a backroom deal and nominate Lyndon Johnson—or somebody else.
Eunice Kennedy Shriver watched the evening unfold in the hotel room. She thought her brother must have been overjoyed about winning the Wisconsin primary, but he seemed almost dejected.
“What does it all mean, Johnny?” Eunice asked him.
“It means that we’ve got to go to West Virginia in the morning and do it all over again. And then we’ve got to go on to Maryland and Indiana and Oregon, and win all of them,” he said.
That night, Jack Kennedy came to the hard truth: All the flash and cash in the world wouldn’t hand him the Democratic presidential nomination. He was heading down a long, grinding road.