Why did Carter do so well in the plains?

[Hydera]

The humble peanut farmer played really well in a lot of rural areas. But still, Ford in the last days was able to close a huge gap between him and carter from a double digit carter victory to a 2% only margin for carter. Had those GOP voters didnt come home then carter might of won those states in the great plains.

And if you were wondering about the south, a lot of southerners were outraged over the watergate scandal. Southerners tend to give more of a backlash towards scandals than other parts of the country which was why bush in 2000 was able to swing all of the southern states that clinton won, to him by claiming he'd restore "honor and integrity to the White House"

Also in the south, he actually got out tons of evangelical christians to vote in the south by emphasizing being a born again christian. These white evangelicals were able to counter the other white southerners who voted on racial issues.  And they later switched to the GOP when they found out that carter was not the evangelical christian they'd hope he would be when in office.

[Hydera]

Huh this is strange, Whats with 20% of democrats voting for ford while carter only got 10% of republicans?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1976#Voter_demographics


Carter should of been the archtype democrat who could bring back the white conservative democrats back to the party. White evangelical southerner who grew up humble and had a folksy peanut farmer image. What explains why there were double of cross-party votes in favor of ford than the reverse?

If carter gained just 10% of democrats that went to ford he would of got a 400+ EV landslide