on debate preparation, appeared relaxed and looked into the camera whilst answering questions. It is commonly said that Kennedy appearing to be the more attractive man of the two won him the debate, largely because of a poll in which voters who watched on TV thought that Kennedy had won but radio listeners believed Nixon to have won. However, only one poll split TV and radio voters like this and the methodology of the pollsters was poor, failing to account for pre-debate political or religious biases and only interviewing 178 radio listeners who believed the debate had been won by either candidate. The location of the polling is also unknown, even though Nixon would have been more popular pre-debate anyway in Protestant, rural areas with less access to television. 1960 was a close race and there is no polling available consistent with the idea that Nixon lost or Kennedy gained support as a result of the debate. Vancil and Pendell point out that Nixon did not win the debate by strength of argument either; Democratic figures were satisfied with Kennedy's debate performance and even many Southern Democrats who had been apathetic or hostile towards Kennedy were impressed, but Nixon's performance alarmed Republican figures who thought that his defensiveness and me-tooism (repeatedly emphasising his agreement with Kennedy) realised their worst fears and was a surprisingly poor performance from him. The debates are now considered a milestone in American political history—the point at which the medium of television began to play a dominant role in politics. Kennedy's campaign gained momentum after the first debate, and he pulled slightly ahead of Nixon in most polls. On Election Day, Kennedy defeated Nixon in one of the closest presidential elections of the 20th century. In the national popular vote, by most accounts, Kennedy led Nixon by just two-tenths of one percent (49.7% to 49.5%), while in the Electoral College, he won 303 votes to Nixon's 219 (269 were needed to win). Fourteen electors from Mississippi and Alabama refused to support Kennedy because of his support for the civil rights movement; they voted for Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, as did an elector from Oklahoma. Forty-three years old, Kennedy was the youngest person ever elected to the presidency (though Theodore Roosevelt was a year younger when, as vice-president, he succeeded to the presidency after the assassination of William McKinley in 1901). Presidency (1961–1963) John F.