A presidential election was held in Indiana on November 8, 1960, as part of the 1960 United States presidential election. The Republican ticket of the vice president of the United States Richard Nixon and the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. defeated the Democratic ticket of the junior U.S. senator from Massachusetts John F. Kennedy and the senior U.S. senator from Texas Lyndon B. Johnson. Kennedy defeated Nixon in the national election with 303 electoral votes.
Nixon faced only token opposition from Frank R. Beckwith, an African American lawyer from Indianapolis. Although certain to carry the state's 32 delegates, the low stakes caused Nixon's supporters to worry that a small turnout could damage the candidate's public image in the days leading up to the primary.
Kennedy campaign director Larry O'Brien visited Indiana in April 1959. He found that the field was relatively clear in the state, with only whispers of a possible favorite son candidacy by freshman U.S. senator Vance Hartke. While O'Brien determined that "there was no great groundswell for Kennedy" in Indiana, he found no evidence of a serious effort by Kennedy's rivals to contest the state. The absence of the other candidates allowed Kennedy to establish an early, commanding lead in the race for the state's 34 delegates.
Despite running effectively unopposed, Kennedy's Catholicism was a significant liability in the primary. Kennedy faced two paper candidatesâÂÂretired pipefitter John H. Latham of Rockville, Indiana, and perennial candidate Lar DalyâÂÂwho together polled nearly 19 percent of the primary vote. Significant voter rolloff, when combined with the votes for Latham and Daly, suggested that as many as one in four Democratic primary voters did not vote for Kennedy.