Kennedy was nominated by the Democratic Party at the national convention on July 15, 1960, and he named Senator Lyndon B. Johnson as his vice-presidential running mate.

On November 8, 1960, they defeated incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon and United Nations Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. in the general election.

[4] However, on the third ballot, Kefauver won with the support of Senator Albert Gore Sr., but would lose in the general election alongside Adlai Stevenson II.

[5] Kennedy later stated that had he won the vice presidential nomination his political career would have ended due to the Republican landslide in the general election.

[8][9] Benefiting also from the handiwork of speechwriter Ted Sorensen, articles published under Kennedy's name began appearing often in serious magazines, among them the Atlantic Monthly and the New Republic.

[12] In the aftermath of his re-election, Kennedy began preparing to run for president by traveling throughout the U.S., establishing contacts with potential Democratic delegates, with the aim of building his candidacy for 1960.

[16] On January 2, 1960, Kennedy formally announced that he would seek the Democratic presidential nomination at the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., and stated that he would participate in multiple primaries, including New Hampshire.

[22] A crucial issue in the 1960 campaign, Kennedy faced the challenge of promoting policies that white southern Democrats supported while, at the same time, courting black voters away from the Republican Party.

The Kennedy brothers' personal intervention led to a public endorsement by Martin Luther King Sr., who had supported Nixon earlier in the campaign.

The publicizing of this endorsement, combined with other campaign efforts, contributed to increased support among black voters for Kennedy, which was pivotal in the swing states of Illinois, Michigan and South Carolina that JFK carried.

In Cuba, the revolutionary regime of Fidel Castro became a close ally of the Soviet Union in 1960, heightening fears of communist subversion in the Western Hemisphere.

[23] Kennedy took advantage of increased Cold War tension by emphasizing a perceived "missile gap" between the United States and Soviet Union.

[27] He also noted in an October 18 speech that several senior U.S. military officers had long criticized the Eisenhower administration's defense spending policies.

He was only the second Catholic ever to be nominated for president by a major party (the first was Democratic Governor Al Smith of New York, who lost to Herbert Hoover in 1928).

[28] Some Protestants, especially Southern Baptists and Lutherans, feared that having a Catholic in the White House would give undue influence to the Pope in the nation's affairs.

[29] In January, Governor Happy Chandler predicted that Kennedy would lose multiple Southern states, including Kentucky, due to his religion.

[32][33] Nixon decided to leave religious issues out of the campaign and hammer the perception that Kennedy was too inexperienced to sit in the Oval Office.

Winning the nomination, however, required the support of substantial blocs of convention delegates from the large states, often controlled by a single person (i.e., Governor David L. Lawrence of Pennsylvania and Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago).

[34] Kennedy won the New Hampshire primary without any opposition on March 8, and receive the highest vote total for any Democratic candidate at that point.

[38] Kennedy's siblings combed the state looking for votes, leading Humphrey to complain that he "felt like an independent merchant running against a chain store.

[40] 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.

[47] Jimmy Hoffa, President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, criticized Kennedy for his amendment on the Landrum–Griffin Act and stated he was a fraud that ignored the labor unions.

[53] Kennedy arrived at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles (held from July 11 to 15) with 600 of the 761 delegates needed to secure the nomination.

[64] Biographer Robert Caro offers a different perspective: writing that on July 14, John Kennedy asked his brother to prepare an estimate of upcoming electoral votes, "including Texas."

"[67] Kennedy hoped to pull together key elements of the Roosevelt coalition of the 1930s—urban communities of color, ethnicity-based voting blocs, and organized labor.

A provision of the Federal Communications Act had been suspended by Congress earlier in the year to permit the networks to broadcast the debates without having to provide equal time for third-party candidates.

Kennedy wore a blue suit and shirt to cut down on glare and appeared sharply focused against the gray studio background.

[23][74] It is often claimed that people who watched the debate on television overwhelmingly believed Kennedy had won, while radio listeners (a smaller audience) thought Nixon had ended up defeating him.

[79] Nonetheless, Gallup polls in October showed Kennedy moving into a slight but consistent lead over Nixon (49% to 46%) after the candidates were in a statistical tie for most of August and September.

[82] On November 1, Kennedy started a seventeen state campaign drive to visit California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maine, and Massachusetts while Nixon was focused on completing his promise to campaign in all fifty states that he made at the Republican National Convention.