In the general election that November, the Kennedy–Johnson ticket won an electoral college victory and a narrow popular vote plurality (slightly over 110,000 nationally) over the Republican candidates Vice President Richard M. Nixon and UN Ambassador Henry C. Lodge II.

It also housed command-posts for the campaigns of the various candidates seeking the nomination, temporary studio spaces for the television networks, and workspaces for select print journalists.

Kennedy's sisters, brothers, and wife Jacqueline combed the state looking for votes, leading Humphrey to complain that he "felt like an independent merchant competing against a chain store.

"[4] However, some political experts argued that Kennedy's margin of victory had come almost entirely from Catholic areas, and thus Humphrey decided to continue the contest in the heavily Protestant state of West Virginia.

In the week before the convention opened, Kennedy received two new challengers when Lyndon B. Johnson, the powerful Senate Majority Leader from Texas, and Adlai Stevenson II, the party's nominee in 1952 and 1956, announced their candidacies.

A Kennedy physician, Janet Travell, released a statement that the senator's adrenal glands were functioning adequately and that he was no more susceptible to infection than anyone else.

"[9] Other planks included national defense, disarmament, civil rights, immigration, foreign aid, the economy, labor and tax reform.

The final tally was: Presidential Balloting / 3rd Day of Convention (July 13, 1960) Kennedy was the first senator since 1920 to be nominated for the presidency by either the Democrats or the Republicans.

He went on to break down the hesitance some may have about his Catholic faith, "And you have, at the same time, placed your confidence in me, and my ability to render a free, fair, judgment...and to reject any kind of religious pressure or obligation that might directly or indirectly interfere with my conduct of the Presidency in the national interest.

"[12] Theodore H. White wrote in The Making of the President 1960 that in Washington, Richard Nixon watched Kennedy deliver his speech with two members of his own campaign.

Johnson and Robert Kennedy became so embittered and the episode marked the beginning of the personal and political feud that would have grave implications for the Democratic Party in the 1960s.

[citation needed] In 1993, Evelyn Lincoln, JFK's personal secretary (both before and during his presidency), described how the decision was made in a videotaped interview.