The South in 1980?

[buritobr]

Was there a post-Carter effect?

Mondale was not as bad in the Southern states as McGovern was. Mondale was close to his national average in the South.

Or did it happen only because black turnout was higher in 1984 than it was in 1972?

[barfbag]

Was there a post-Carter effect?

Mondale was not as bad in the Southern states as McGovern was. Mondale was close to his national average in the South.

Or did it happen only because black turnout was higher in 1984 than it was in 1972?

McGovern was about 7 points worse nationwide so there's a difference already. He was also seen as a wild-eyed liberal where Mondale was seen as liberal, but not over the top. Mondale's other problem was that he was also seen as a very dull and boring candidate.

[Fuzzy Bear]

He seems to have hurt Carter more in the northeast when looking at numbers, but one would think it would be the opposite. In the south, Anderson was hardly a factor.

Anderson was an extremely key factor in the South, in that just about every Anderson vote was an otherwise Democratic vote.

Had every Anderson vote in the South went to Carter, Arkansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee would have gone to Carter.  Alabama would have gone GOP by a hair by the numbers, but if Anderson had not been running, it would have been close.

Carter lost the 1980 election by not being able to preempt the Kennedy challenge to his renomination.  This was a huge political failure, and a preventable one.  The failure ultimately rests with Carter, but a whole lot of Democratic politcians still swooning over Camelot failed to take a long range view of what they were doing.  I can't think of a single President that encountered a full-bore challenge to his renomination that prevailed in November from the 20th century onward

[barfbag]

He seems to have hurt Carter more in the northeast when looking at numbers, but one would think it would be the opposite. In the south, Anderson was hardly a factor.

Anderson was an extremely key factor in the South, in that just about every Anderson vote was an otherwise Democratic vote.

Had every Anderson vote in the South went to Carter, Arkansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee would have gone to Carter.  Alabama would have gone GOP by a hair by the numbers, but if Anderson had not been running, it would have been close.

Carter lost the 1980 election by not being able to preempt the Kennedy challenge to his renomination.  This was a huge political failure, and a preventable one.  The failure ultimately rests with Carter, but a whole lot of Democratic politcians still swooning over Camelot failed to take a long range view of what they were doing.  I can't think of a single President that encountered a full-bore challenge to his renomination that prevailed in November from the 20th century onward

He wasn't significant in the sense he didn't get over 5% much of anywhere in the south. Even without Kennedy challenging him there's the economy which Carter described as a "malaise that may not get better." Can you imagine if George W. Bush would've said that the economy is a malaise that may not get better? Look at Carter's approval ratings leading up to the election. No president could've gotten re-elected with such numbers. I can't think of a president since Carter who has faced such a challenge in the primaries either. However, I can't think of a president who did as poorly or presided over worse times than Carter either. Even if you say Bush was worse, it was his second term that was deemed as bad, not his first term.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Can you imagine if George W. Bush would've said that the economy is a malaise that may not get better?

No, I can't imagine it, because then he would have been telling the truth, which he never did.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Reagan wasn't particularly religious. He rarely prayed or went to church, and he and his wife dabbled in astrology, which is a big no-no in evangelical congregations. In spite of all of this, the Religious Right believed he was a devout Christian, which for political purposes, is what matters.

Added to that the fact that his denomination of choice wasn't exactly of the Religious Right...

He was Presbyterian wasn't he? Do we know if he was a member of the Presbyterian Church USA (Mainline) or the Presbyterian Church in America (Evangelical)?

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bel_Air_Presbyterian_Church

Altho in 1980, Bel Air PC would likely have been part of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.  The PC(USA) was formed in 1983 by a merger of the UPCUSA and the PCUS (Presbyterian Church in the United States).

[SingingAnalyst]

In the contiguous region of KY, TN, NC, SC, GA, AL, MS, and AR, Carter got 125,000 more votes than Reagan, or about 1.2% of the total votes cast--but it did him no good as he lost 7 of the 8 states by 0-2% margins. The only state he won of the 8 was GA, by 236,000 votes and 15%. In all, these 8 states gave Carter 12 EVs and Reagan 62.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Interestingly enough the South actually trended towards Carter compared to 1976. The whole notion of him losing because evangelicals abandoned him is overblown.

He lost the South because he lost by 10 points nationally, had he lost by 5 points instead he would have carried most of the South.

[Podgy the Bear]

The last week of the 1980 election was quite interesting and amazing--with the presidential debate and the possible release of the hostages (and subsequent letdown) on the last weekend-- turned a close race into a rout.

I believe that the last weekend added about 5 points to Reagan's total margin.   If the final vote total showed a 5 point difference, i.e. 48-43-7, Carter would have picked up the 71 votes he narrowly lost in the South (plus New York, Massachusetts, Maine, Wisconsin, Delaware, and possibly Louisiana).  It wouldn't have been enough to win, of course, but he would have had close to 200 EV--avoiding the landslide and realignment talk that did eventually develop.

In hindsight, I think that Carter was relegated to lose sometime before the end of October.  Other than Washington and Oregon (the Carter campaign thought they had a chance; they campaigned in those states on the last day of the campaign), there was almost nowhere else they could add to the 1976 totals.  States such as Texas and Florida (which he carried in 1976) were lost by then--and he was in trouble in states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois (states that he probably could have carried in 1980 in a less difficult atmosphere).

[Fuzzy Bear]

OK, Carter is a Southener. But what about Al Gore? He carried zero confederacy states.

And Carter? He is pro-civil rights for blacks, against capital punishment, environmentalist and pro legalization of marijuana.

Maybe, in some issues, Carter is more liberal than Gore.

Why did Carter have much better results among white southeners than Gore?

Did the political orientation of white southeners change from 1976 and 1980 to 2000?

The South became much more Republican by 2000.  Also, Carter did not have the same liberal reputation back in 1976 or 1980 that he does today.

Here's the map if Anderson isn't a candidate:

[sg0508]

Carter really didn't have anywhere to build from 1976.  The west and southwest were a lost cause.  He had to hold the Midwest and the industrial states in the northeast to win again.  Personally, I just think people stayed home, and Carter really seemed to have no base in '80.  Even the jewish vote (a very small percentage of the total electorate) gave Carter a terrible performance.

[DS0816]

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Being a southerner helped Carter immensely.  That helped him avoid what would have been a McGovern like defeat in 1980.

This was asked more than 18 months ago.

In 1980, the two parties were in a transitional period concerning their base states of support. Ronald Reagan won some Old Confederacy states above and below his national percentage margin. He also did that in today's "Blue Firewall" states.

The first elected Republican to consistently win for his prevailing party base states of support, from the Old Confederacy, was George Bush in 1988. (Louisiana was his lowest margin, at just over 10 percentage points. He won the U.S. Popular Vote by just under 8.)

[7,052,770]

In 1976/80 there were lots of Democrats who remembered the "Solid South" days and the New Deal days, so voting Democratic wasn't so unthinkable in their minds, even if they personally were right of center. A lot of these people had died by 2000, and they're almost all dead by 2015.

[Hydera]

In 1976/80 there were lots of Democrats who remembered the "Solid South" days and the New Deal days, so voting Democratic wasn't so unthinkable in their minds, even if they personally were right of center. A lot of these people had died by 2000, and they're almost all dead by 2015.

Alabama had a song in the 90's about a southerner being reminiscent of the new deal era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHdXQAQHjd8

From the looks of it. winning white southerners is going to be near impossible. Since most of them having probably been voting GOP for a very long time and in large margins too

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=210084.0

 and theres probably not going to be a new "alignment" anytime soon.

[Ebsy]

They forgot who saved them from the Republicans.

[Hydera]

Interesting.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Z8g4SVu6HwYC&lpg=PA120&dq=&pg=PA120#v=onepage&q=&f=false




One of the reasons carter won the south in 1976 was because of higher evangelical turnout. However conservative evangelicals voted in favor of carter. Liberal evangelicals didn't have much of an increase in turnout in comparison.

[Gekkonidae]

Regardless, Democrats continued to lose the South in the following years. So much for a "Carter effect"

[Ebsy]

They forgot who saved them from the Republicans.

To be fair, the South was a completely different place in 1980 than it was in 1932.

Thank the New Dealers for that.

[Fuzzy Bear]

They forgot who saved them from the Republicans.

To be fair, the South was a completely different place in 1980 than it was in 1932.

Thank the New Dealers for that.

The South was a different place in 1980 because the Democratic Party brought a forced end to legal segregation.  Many white Southerners secretly resented that, but let that go underground somewhat, hoping that the issue would resolve itself.  Now, however, Southern poticis is all abour race, with the GOP being the party of the white man and the Democrats being the party of the black man in the Deep South and those portions of the Border South that aren't heavily populated with transplants.  That a sitting Southern white Congressman (Joe Wilson) could feel free to shout "You lie!" during the SOTU address by a black POTUS was, IMO, the white South showing itself. 

[buritobr]

According to the edition of November 3th 1980 (Monday) of a newspaper, the forecasts were

Reagan
Alaska
California
Idaho
Utah
Arizona
Montana
Wyoming
Colorado
New Mexico
North Dakota
South Dakota
Nebraska
Kansas
Oklahoma
Texas
Iowa
Illinois
Mississippi
Michigan
Indiana
Ohio
New Hampshire
New Jersey
Florida

Toss Up
Washington
Oregon
Wisconsin
Missouri
Louisiana
Alabama
Vermont
New York
Connecticut
Pennsylvania
Virginia
South Carolina
Hawai

Carter
Minnesota
Arkansas
Kentucky
Tennessee
West Virginia
Maine
Massachusetts
Rhode Island
Delaware
Maryland
North Carolina
Georgia
DC

[sg0508]

It's striking how that last debate just completely blew the race from being perceived as "neck and neck" into a total electoral landslide.  While I wasn't alive in '80, my parents and grandparents had told me (in addition to reading up on the race) that prior to that final debate, it was still 50/50 as to who was going to win and many thought Carter still had a chance.

That last debate clearly cost Carter most of those southern states and big states like NY.  Also keep in mind that the challenger typically gets most of the remaining undecided voters in the final days, which Reagan clearly did.  That ironically, is what likely stopped Pres. Ford from winning in '76 and completing a remarkable rally after being down 33 pts in the popular polls following the DNC.

Again though, I firmly believe that many Carter supporters just didn't bother turning out and that's why those states broke away from him. 

[Ebsy]

Also keep in mind that the challenger typically gets most of the remaining undecided voters in the final days, which Reagan clearly did.

Could you provide some evidence for this assertion?

[sg0508]

Also keep in mind that the challenger typically gets most of the remaining undecided voters in the final days, which Reagan clearly did.

Could you provide some evidence for this assertion?

Here.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_polling_for_U.S._Presidential_elections#United_States_presidential_election.2C_1976

[Prince of Salem]

There was obviously a Carter effect. (Well, duh! )

But no post-Carter effect. All of the South trended Republican very heavily in '84.