He is old enouh to know that is a flat out lie.
Chicago, Nixon, JFK.
All you need to know.
But Lyndon Johnson and TX politics is a graduate course.
Grover Cleveland won in 1884 by carrying New York state by a razor-thin margin. Blaine's loss is generally blamed on his supporter's calling the Democrats the party of "rum, Romanism, and rebellion," offending Catholic voters (few of whom voted for the Republicans anyway), but maybe the Tammany machine in New York City was the real reason that Cleveland won the election.