Rutherford Decker

Rutherford Losey Decker (May 27, 1904 – September 21, 1972) was an American politician who was a longtime member and a Presidential nominee of Prohibition Party in 1960, and the president of the National Association of Evangelicals from 1946 to 1948.

Decker was born in Elmira, New York. He was a missionary at the American Baptist Home Mission Society, and preached in Fort Morgan, Colorado and in Denver, Colorado.

A lifelong resident of Missouri, he was nominated for president with party chairman Earle Harold Munn as his running-mate.

Decker and Munn finished fifth with 46,203 (0.07%) votes (and not one electoral vote). Munn succeeded Decker as a presidential nominee in 1964. They appeared on ballots in 11 states: Alabama, Delaware, Michigan, California, Massachusetts, Texas, Tennessee, New Mexico, Kansas, Indiana and Montana. Decker and Munn did not receive over 1% of the vote in any of these states.

He died in September 1972 at the age of 68.

Electoral history

United States presidential election, 1960 John F. Kennedy/Lyndon B. Johnson (D) - 34,226,731 (49.72%) and 303 electoral votes (22 states carried) Richard Nixon/Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (R) - 34,108,157 (49.55%) and 219 electoral votes (26 states carried) Harry Byrd/Strom Thurmond/Barry Goldwater (ID) - 15 electoral votes (unpledged electors from Mississippi, half of unpledged electors from Alabama and faithless elector from Oklahoma; Thurmond won 14 electoral votes for V.P., Goldwater one. Byrd all 15 for president) Eric Hass/Georgia Cozzini (Socialist Labor) - 47,522 (0.07%) Rutherford Decker/Earle Harold Munn (Prohibition) - 46,203 (0.07%) Orval E. Faubus/John G. Crommelin (National States' Rights Party) - 44,984 (0.07%)