In the 1960 presidential race, john f. kennedy became the democratic candidate, despite:

In the 1960 Presidential elections, John F Kennedy became the democratic candidate despite his Catholicism.

This was surprising since Anti-Catholic sentiment was pretty high in mainstream American society at the time.

This was also seen as a reason why his presidential win was the closest in the history of the United States with a margin of just 118,000 out of 69 million votes.