A New America Series - 1980 General Election

[Maxwell]

At this moment Jerry Brown has a decent lead so I don't want to hear anymore complaints.

I also have an idea of how to explain Laxalt's shockingly poor performance in the general election.

[Zioneer]

At this moment Jerry Brown has a decent lead so I don't want to hear anymore complaints.

I also have an idea of how to explain Laxalt's shockingly poor performance in the general election.

Fair enough, I have no more complaints. Looking forward to the next election in the series!

[Maxwell]

A New America Series - 1980 General Election

Three major candidates - all in contention, all fighting bitterly, and all give off some level of budgetary conservatism. The campaign went through many twists and all three candidates took turns with polling leads.

First, Laxalt's speech at the Republican convention was publically heralded, and even after a moderately successful Democratic convention and a deeply unorganized Constitutionial convention, Laxalt held a 10 point lead over Brown and McDonald (38-25-28). But Laxalt's campaign began falling apart after accusations over affairs with fellow Senator Pete Domenici's wife. It got to the point where Republican leaders began conversating over the idea of replacing Laxalt on the ticket with George Bush, talks that got tanked when it became clear that Laxalt was on the ballot too late to be removed. Laxalt also failed in his challenge of McDonald as insufficiently conservative, and in fact, conservative voters would largely abandon Laxalt not just because of his affairs, but because of his lack of "real" conservativism that McDonald seemed to have.

So in the last few months it was a head to head battle of McDonald vs. Brown. President Hatfield, in a seriously dark place looking at the candidates, ultimately preferred Brown to McDonald, as he preferred "an ideologue with sense to an ideologue with out it". Some Republicans even did Hatfield's work for him and outright endorsed Jerry Brown, while others, like conservative Nebraska Senator John McCloister, proudly endorsed Larry McDonald as a "constitutional scholar this nation needs". When it came down to it, despite McDonald's great oratory performances, Brown would prevail on the strength of minorities, liberals, and moderates of both parties, and thanks to a stronger than expected performance from disgraced Senator Paul Laxalt.

Governor Jerry Brown (D-CA)/Senator John Glenn (D-OH) - 41.2%, 314 EV's
Former Congressman Larry McDonald (C-GA)/Senator James Buckley (C-NY) - 37.3%, 220 EV's
Senator Paul Laxalt (R-NV)/Senator John P. Hammerschmidt (R-AR) - 21.6%, 4 EV's