Video: 'United States Election Night Coverage from 1928-present' (1960 coverage on clips 22-35)

(Tuesday, November 8, 1960, during the 1960 United States presidential election) — Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a Democrat, was elected as the 35th President of the United States today, defeating incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon of California, a Republican.

Kennedy and his running mate, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, won 49.72 percent of the popular vote, resulting in 303 electoral votes.

Nixon and his running mate, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. of Massachusetts, received 49.55 percent of the popular vote, resulting in 219 electoral votes.

Video: 'The American Presidential Election of 1960'

Fourteen unpledged electors from Mississippi and Alabama cast their vote for Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, a Democrat, as did a faithless elector from Oklahoma.

The incumbent president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, was ineligible to run for a third term because of the term limits established by the recently approved 22nd Amendment.

Kennedy and Johnson would be sworn in for a four-year term of office on January 20, 1961.