The main issues of the election were the civil rights movement, the Cold War, and Kennedy's Catholic faith.

Both candidates were against communism, and were in favor of civil rights enough to win Black voters but not enough to lose white southerners.

Richard Nixon was the Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961, serving alongside Dwight D. Eisenhower.

He promised to continue Eisenhower's work and "improve upon them in such areas as welfare programs, foreign aid, and defense.

"[3] His main opponents in the general election were Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy and Texas Governor Lyndon B. Johnson, Democrats.

As a result of these changes, Politico writes, "both Kennedy and Nixon were trying to simultaneously appeal to urban Black people and white southerners, an exercise in political tightrope-walking.

[8] Nixon gave his opinion on the matter while speaking to a group of Protestant ministers in Houston on September 12:[3] I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish—where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source—where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials—and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.There were four televised debates between Nixon and Kennedy.

Nixon had a "sweaty, haggard appearance" because of the studio's hot stage lights, and a knee infection caused by septic arthritis, for which he got treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in August.

He is an accomplished debater with a professional polish, and he managed to convey a slightly patronizing air of a master instructing a pupil.” The Conversation writes that was arguably more detrimental was Nixon's seeming "defensive and deferential" attitudes towards topics Kennedy brought up.

Robert Finch responded to the allegation by saying it was "an obvious political smear in the last two weeks of the campaign", and that the loan actually came from Frank J.

[14] Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Sr. initially endorsed Nixon for president, as he did not support Kennedy for religious reasons.

Republican operatives, lead by Robert Finch, Thurston B. Morton, and Leonard W. Hall, announced investigations into 11 states' results for irregularities: Delaware, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina.

[8][5] Morton claimed the Republican Party received, as Politico wrote, "35,000 letters and telegrams with anecdotal accounts of fraud".

He publicly said:[2] I could think of no worse example for nations abroad, who for the first time were trying to put free electoral procedures into effect, than that of the United States wrangling over the results of our presidential election, and even suggesting that the presidency itself could be stolen by thievery at the ballot box.On November 9, Nixon conceded to Kennedy.

[5][6] Historian Edmund Kallina, however, writes that the discrepancies in the Chicago vote count were not large enough to give the state to Nixon if they had not occurred.

His allies argued that their claims of voter fraud had historical precedent in how Hawaii's electors voted for Kennedy instead of Nixon.