No. In any case without Reagan, it's a closer election. Poppy Bush is no Reagan, Anderson is no Reagan, Baker is no Reagan, Connally is no Reagan, Dole is no Reagan; hell, Ford is no Reagan. But any of them would've still killed Carter in 1980. It was just a Republican year.
No.
Lower, or in some cases, even losing again.
No. Carter was the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time for 1980, & again, anybody would've still killed him in 1980. It was just that Republican of a year.
Can't underestimate the power of incumbency though, and there's still the reasonable grip on The South that even Reagan had some time getting through, along with the natural hold on The Northeast.
While I have little doubts about where the popular vote would go, whether it would be enough to beat the Electoral College advantage Carter had is another story. I mean, would Dole have been able to crack The South? Would Connally or Baker been able to flip The Northeast and Midwest? Where would Reagan have ended up if Anderson hadn't eaten away in The Northeast/Wisconsin/Illinois?Connally would have been likely to lose Massachusetts, New York, Delaware and possibly Wisconsin, and Dole would quite plausibly have lost some of the close states in the South.
Baker, a fellow Southerner, is the only one who I feel might have been able to achieve a higher electoral college margin than Reagan did. He was a moderate Appalachian Republican who would certainly have been able to do as well or better than Reagan in the Northeast and the lower Midwest – perhaps winning Maryland. The question is how would
the West have voted unless Baker chose a running mate from that region to balance the ticket??
If Baker – like Carter – chose another “Easterner” as vice-Presidential nominee, then we might have seen higher third-party votes in the West? Or would Anderson have not run and Carter gained a much better vote in the region without Reagan’s appeal?
