NONLINEAR TRANSFORMATION IN A LANDSLIDE - JOHNSON AND GOLDWATER IN 1964

This study investigates mass electoral behavior during the 1964 landsl ide presidential election in the United States. The aggregate contextu al characteristics of such elections of large magnitude and rapid chan ge have not been examined thoroughly in the extant literature on votin g. Here, a formal ''social systems'' model of partisan competition is developed and evaluated with respect to a complete collection of count y-level electoral data. The model is a system of two interdependent di fferential equations that characterize rapid and large-scale aggregate partisan change. It is found that the 1964 landslide election involve d a highly complex and contextually conditioned set of aggregate votin g behaviors. The masses were guided in their partisan choices by a var iety of nonlinear social processes. Fundamental to this analysis is a discussion of whether societies necessarily vote within a state of agg regate political equilibrium during a landslide. I find that in the de ep southern states, the process of partisan competition was not comple ted by the time the election occurred. Evidence is offered that sugges ts that the electorate in the Deep South did not vote in a state of re gional equilibrium. The opposite is true of aggregate voting in areas outside the Deep South. These findings have implications with regard t o the meaning of elections during periods of rapid partisan change.