By the fall of 1963, Kennedy began focusing more on his upcoming re-election campaign.

A few days after the South Vietnamese coup, the Republican governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller,

announced that he was a candidate for the Republican

nomination. Arizona Republican Senator Barry Goldwater had yet to announce, but he was widely

expected to run. He and Kennedy were friends and old colleagues from the Senate. Some

accounts indicate that the two look forward to running against each other if Goldwater could get the nomination.

Kennedy felt that it was going to be a tough race.

He told his aides that he doubted whether he could make any inroads into the states he lost in 1960,

saying, quote, let's quit on Kansas and Nebraska.

North Dakota? That's impossible.

He added, quote,

What is it we have to sell them? We hope to sell them prosperity, but for the average guy,

prosperity is nil. He's not unprosperous, but he's not very prosperous. He's not going to make out well off, and and the people who are well-off hate our guts.

Kennedy had also proposed the civil rights bill earlier that year.

He feared that this would cost him politically in the South, saying, quote,

we're the ones shoving the Negroes down his throat.

Texas was key to his re-election hopes.

He had carried the state in 1960 by just two percentage points, thanks in large part to having Lyndon Johnson as his running mate. The problem

was that he was still unpopular in the state, and the Democratic Party was split between liberals

and conservatives. He hoped that a trip to Texas,

scheduled for November 21st and 22nd, would help mend some fences. He flew to Texas on the 21st with his

wife, Jackie. Vice President Lyndon Johnson and his wife joined them as they swung through San Antonio,

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