The 1964 United States presidential election was the 45th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 3, 1964. Incumbent Democratic United States President Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee, in a landslide. With 61.1% of the popular vote, Lyndon B. Johnson won the largest share of the popular vote of any candidate since the largely uncontested 1820 election, in which no candidate of either party has been able to match or surpass. Johnson took office on November 22, 1963 and emphasized the continuation of his assassinated predecessor, John F. Kennedy. He easily defeated a primary challenge by Governor George Wallace of Alabama, to win the nomination to a full term. At the 1964 Democratic National Convention, Johnson selected Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota as his running mate. In the Republican contest Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, a leader of his party's conservative faction, defeated liberal Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York and Governor William Scranton of Pennsylvania. Johnson championed his passage of the Civil Rights Act, and advocated a series of anti-poverty programs collectively known as the Great Society. Goldwater espoused a low-tax, small-government philosophy. Although he supported previous attempts at enacting civil rights legislation in 1957 and 1960, Goldwater reluctantly opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, saying it violated individual liberty and states' rights. Democrats successfully portrayed Goldwater as a dangerous extremist, most famously in the "Daisy" television advertisement. The Republicans were divided between its moderate and conservative factions, with Rockefeller and other moderate party leaders refusing to campaign for Goldwater. Johnson led by wide margins in all polls during the campaign. Johnson carried 44 states and the District of Columbia, which voted for the first time in this election. Goldwater won his home state and swept the five states of the Deep South, most of which had not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since the end of Reconstruction in 1877. This was the last election in which the Democratic Party won a majority of the white vote, with 59% of white voters shunning Goldwater for Johnson. This was the last election in which the Democratic nominee carried Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, or Oklahoma, and the only election ever in which the Democrat carried Alaska. This was also the last election until 1992 in which the Democrat carried California, Colorado, Illinois, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey