Here, hour by hour (in Eastern Standard Time), is how the ballot boxes told one of the big political stories of the generation:
8 to 9 o'clock. Nixon winged ahead in early-bird returns scattered east of the Rockies (he led 2 to 1 in Kansas alone). But barely had the ABC and CBS electronic brains prematurely predicted a G.O.P. sweep than the Republicans conceded Connecticut by some 90,000—a magic figure that Democrats read as a sure sign of a sweep in the big marathon industrial states. But perhaps some of the Connecticut vote for Kennedy was sheer neighborliness.
Kennedy was wrapping up two-thirds of the early vote in Philadelphia and Chicago—more, it seemed, than he appeared to need to breast the expected rural Republican tides.
In the South, Nixon showed strength along the border, holding slight leads in Tennessee and Kentucky. The Democrats claimed North Carolina and South Carolina—two states that Nixon had been counting in his column—and signs were mounting that Southern Negroes, who had been strong for Ike, were swinging back to the Democrats (in Durham, N.C., one bellwether Negro precinct that went 66% for Ike in 1956 went 66% for Kennedy).
NBC's computer, last of the big electronic brains to punch in, put the odds on a Kennedy victory at 22 to 1.
9 to 10. Gulping down mounting returns, network computers giddily upped the odds on Kennedy. But the predictions only made Nixon Campaign Manager Len Hall huff that the computers ought to be tossed into the junkheap. The election, he claimed, was "a squeaker."
Nixon could indeed take heart from his continuing lead in Tennessee and victory in Florida and Kentucky. First Texas returns were a tossup.
Turning out huge votes, many northern big cities polled mounting Kennedy margins. Jubilant Pennsylvania Democrats saw victory by 300,000 in Philadelphia. In steelmaking Bethlehem, a precinct that had voted for the winner in every 20th-century election went for Kennedy, 576-380, and the news was flashed to Hyannisport by direct telephone wire. Kennedy was building toward a 600,000 lead in Chicago's Cook County—presumably more than enough to sew up the state. New York City was going predictably Democratic. And not even in upstate New York, where Republicans hoped to offset Kennedy's expected city bundle, was the news good for Nixon. After liking Ike in both 1952 and 1956, Syracuse was giving Kennedy an early lead.
Exceptions to the Kennedy good news: Ohio, New Jersey and Michigan were not falling his way as fast as predicted.
10 to 11. With about 21% of the national vote tallied, Kennedy loped ahead by a popular million, and was the leader in states with an electoral-vote count of 365 (to Nixon's 151).
New York's Mayor Robert Wagner promised a million-vote margin for Kennedy in his city; and sure enough, Kennedy was coming close to that (Adlai got a mere 92,000 plurality in 1956). Philadelphia not only smashed Roosevelt's all-time record high of 1936, but suburban Upper Darby voted for a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time in history. Baltimore's decisive plurality for Kennedy gave him Maryland.