The American Presidential Election of 1980

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The 49th episode in a very long series about the American presidential elections from 1788 to the present. In 1980, Ronald Reagan seems unstoppable as he tries to "make America great again."

The 49th Presidential election in American history took place on November 4, 1980. As President, Jimmy Carter faced quite a few obstacles, and things just weren’t all peachy. The country faced low economic growth, high inflation and interest rates, and an energy crisis, in which the prices of oil went way up since supply went down in certain areas. This shortage was partially caused by the Iranian Revolution of 1979, in which a new Islamic government hostile to the United States overthrew the old one.

And this soon led to the Iranian Hostage Crisis, in which 52 American diplomats and citizens were held hostage after a group of Iranian revolutionaries took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Carter tried applying economic and diplomatic pressure on the Iranians to get the hostages released, but ultimately, by the time the election rolled around, he was unsuccessful freeing them.

As Carter sought renomination by the Democratic Party, he did face challengers. His leading opponent was Ted Kennedy. This was the toughest primary race a sitting President had to go through to seek his party’s renomination since President Taft sought renomination in the election of 1912, which as you already know ended up splitting the Republican Party. Carter and Kennedy were in a tight race, and some people tried to get Edmund Muskie, who was now the Secretary of State, to run against them, just to break apart the deadlock between the two. It didn’t work, but Carter had more delegates than Kennedy going into the convention, and he won renomination, with Walter Mondale also re-nominated for Vice President.

Ronald Reagan was easily the favorite to win the Republican nomination, but he did have several opponents. Like George Herbert Walker Bush, the former CIA director and Representative from Texas, or this dude. John B. Anderson, a U.S. Representative from Illinois. Anderson stood out among the crowd of Republicans because of a great debate performance against his other Republican challengers. He eloquently expressed himself and said things none of the other candidates dared say, like saying that lowering taxes, increasing defense spending, and balancing the budget could not all happen at the same time. After this, Anderson got a lot of media attention.

Still, no one could take on the popular Ronald Reagan, who it seems had been preparing for this moment for a very long time. Reagan got the nomination, with Bush as his running mate.

Meanwhile, Anderson had decided to leave the Republican Party and run as an independent candidate, mostly as a centrist, or as the moderate guy who argued that Reagan was much too conservative and Carter much too liberal. Patrick Lucey, a former Democratic governor of Wisconsin and Ambassador to Mexico in the Carter administration, was Anderson’s running mate.

The Libertarian Party by this time had started to gain some momentum. They nominated Ed Clark, a lawyer who had previously ran for governor of California as the third party candidate but lost. David Koch, a businessman and engineer from Kansas, was his running mate. Koch is one of the now famous, or infamous, depending on who you ask, Koch brothers. Koch pledged part of his personal fortune to the campaign.

The two front runners, Reagan and Carter, were neck and neck. Reagan ran a campaign of optimism, while Carter’s campaign seemed to be more negative, attacking Reagan for being too far to the right. Reagan called for more military spending, while at the same time calling for a smaller government. Wait, what? Carter’s campaign had to defend the Iranian hostage crisis, support for the Equal Rights Amendment to the constitution, which was supposed to guarantee equality for women but by 1980 was not as popular, and a struggling economy.

Not only that, but when the League of Women Voters invited Carter to debate both Reagan and Anderson, Carter turned it down because Anderson was invited. So the debate was a bit weird, with just Reagan and Anderson going at it. Anderson was polling at around 20 percent at the time. After the debate, Anderson’s poll numbers dropped, and the League asked Carter again to join just Reagan this time for a debate one week before the election. Carter accepted. The debate had really high ratings, and by most accounts Reagan dominated, even though his campaign may have had access to Carter’s notes preparing for the debate ahead of time.