1980 United States presidential election information
49th quadrennial U.S. presidential election
1980 United States presidential election
← 1976
November 4, 1980
1984 →
538 members of the Electoral College 270 electoral votes needed to win
Turnout
54.2%[1] 0.6 pp
Nominee
Ronald Reagan
Jimmy Carter
John B. Anderson
Party
Republican
Democratic
Independent[a]
Home state
California
Georgia
Illinois
Running mate
George H. W. Bush
Walter Mondale
Patrick Lucey
Electoral vote
489
49
0
States carried
44
6 + DC
0
Popular vote
43,903,230
35,481,115
5,719,850
Percentage
50.8%
41.0%
6.6%
Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Reagan/Bush and blue denotes those won by Carter/Mondale. Numbers indicate electoral votes cast by each state.
President before election
Jimmy Carter
Democratic
Elected President
Ronald Reagan
Republican
The 1980 United States presidential election was the 49th quadrennial presidential election, held on November 4, 1980. The Republican nominee, former California governor Ronald Reagan, defeated incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter in a landslide victory.
Carter's unpopularity and poor relations with Democratic leaders encouraged an unsuccessful intra-party challenge from Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. Meanwhile, the Republican primaries were contested between former California Governor Ronald Reagan, former Central Intelligence Agency director George H. W. Bush, Illinois Representative John B. Anderson, and several other candidates. All of Reagan's opponents had dropped out by the end of the primaries, and the Republicans nominated a ticket consisting of Reagan and Bush. Anderson entered the general election as an independent candidate with Patrick Lucey, former Wisconsin governor, as his running mate.
Reagan campaigned for increased defense spending, supply-side economic policies, and a balanced budget. His campaign was aided by Democratic dissatisfaction with Carter, the Iran hostage crisis, and a worsening economy marred by stagflation. Carter attacked Reagan as a dangerous right-wing extremist, and warned that Reagan would cut Medicare and Social Security. The Carter campaign was aided early on by the rally 'round the flag effect from the hostage crisis, but as the crisis lasted to election day, it became a detriment.[2]
Reagan won the election in a landslide, with 489 Electoral College votes to Carter's 49 and 50.8% of the popular vote to Carter's 41.0%. Anderson won 6.6% of the popular vote and no electoral votes. Due to the rise of conservatism following Reagan's victory, historians have considered the election a political realignment that began with Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign in 1964. To date, this is the most recent election in which an incumbent Democratic president was not reelected and the only time that a Republican nominee defeated a Democratic incumbent in both the popular and the electoral vote.[3]
^"National General Election VEP Turnout Rates, 1789-Present". United States Election Project. CQ Press.
^Callaghan, Karen J.; Virtanen, Simo (August 1993). "Revised Models of the "Rally Phenomenon": The Case of the Carter Presidency". The Journal of Politics. 55 (3): 756–764. doi:10.2307/2131999. ISSN 0022-3816.
^Perlstein, Richard (2001). Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus. New York: Nation Books. pp. x. ISBN 978-1-56858-412-6.
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0.6 pp
