Here is the third article in a series named “The Closest Calls,” where author and journalist Jeff Greenfield looks at the most narrowly decided presidential elections and explores how small ...

Vice President Richard Nixon and Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy faced off in the first televised presidential debate in U.S. history on this day in history, Sept. 26, 1960.

Electoral votes: KENNEDY 39. Solid for Nixon: The Vice President can bank on the traditional G.O.P. strongholds in New England (Maine, Vermont) and in the Midwest grain belt (Iowa, Kansas ...

Kennedy in, Nixon proclaims. ... was one of the closest in history and right up to the 11th hour it was uncertain whether the final count would give Kennedy 300 or 303 of the 537 electoral votes. ...

Texas and Illinois, the two largest states under dispute, witnessed the nastiest fights. In Texas, where Kennedy won the 24 electoral votes by a margin of 46,000 ballots, the GOP took to the ...

CAMPAIGN OF THE CENTURY Kennedy, Nixon, and the Election of 1960 By Irwin F. Gellman. For Richard Nixon, the holiday season of 1960 was a sullen affair. Weeks before, on Nov. 8, he had lost an ...

Ad Policy. John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon stand at podiums during one of four televised debates in 1960. (Corbis / Corbis via Getty Images) From winner-take-all elections to the Electoral ...

A taut election, a fraught vote count, a blown result call. It’s all so very now. But it also happened back in 1960 when the principals were John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, and the ...