Starting Over: Carter re-elected in 1980

[SingingAnalyst]

Carter/Mondale 46.02% / 297 EV
Reagan/Bush 45.75% / 241 EV
Anderson/Lucey 6.61% / 0 EV

Carter sought to portray Reagan as an extremist, and it worked. On the first anniversary of the seizure of 63 Americans in Tehran, President Jimmy Carter was narrowly re-elected.

Do the hostages still come home Jan. 20 as IRL? Does the religious right take shape as IRL?

Also, in this ATL this is the first election to speak of in which women cast the deciding votes, voting 50/43 Carter while men voted 49/42 Reagan. Is a woman nominee and President soon to follow?

[SingingAnalyst]

The religious right probably reached its apogee in 1988, with Pat Robertson running for President, but it probably started in 1979 when the Rev. Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority. The religious right was credited with many of Reagan's razor-thin victories in the South in 1980, and for defeating Senators Birch Bayh (D-IN), Frank Church (D-ID) and George McGovern (D-SD) that same year.