New York voters chose 43 electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote pitting incumbent Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson and his running mate, President pro tempore of the Senate Hubert Humphrey, against Republican challenger and Senator Barry Goldwater from Arizona and his running mate and Chair of the Republican National Committee, William E. Miller.

The staunch conservative Barry Goldwater was widely seen in the liberal Northeast as a right-wing extremist;[2] he had voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Johnson campaign portrayed him as a warmonger who as president would provoke a nuclear war.

However, Johnson also swept every county in the state, including traditionally Republican parts of upstate New York and Long Island.

Johnson's record of 4.9 million votes won by a single candidate in New York would hold for four years longer, being surpassed by Joe Biden in 2020.

[6] This result also made Johnson one of only three presidential candidates of either party who have been able to sweep every county in New York State, along with Harding in 1920 and his successor Calvin Coolidge in 1924.