[2][3] Ultimately, Goldwater won Mississippi with a 74.28 point margin of victory over Johnson, making Mississippi 97% more Republican than the nation and Goldwater the first Republican to win the state since Reconstruction, even outperforming Johnson's 71% margin of victory in the District of Columbia.

[5] This reflected the widespread belief among Mississippi whites that civil rights activists were funded by communists.

[8] In July, polling suggested Goldwater would receive ninety percent of Mississippi's vote,[9] but this fell to seventy in August[10] and to between sixty and sixty-five in October due to fears that he would abolish the Rural Electrification Administration.

[9] By the weekend before election day, University of California political scientist Peter H. Odegard believed that Goldwater would win only Alabama[a] and Mississippi.

[11] Mississippi was one of five states that swung more Republican in 1964, alongside Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina.