The United States presidential election of 1976 followed the resignation of President Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States from 1969–1974 and was also the 36th Vice President of the United States (1953–1961). Nixon was the only President to resign the office and also the only person to be elected twice to both the Presidency and the Vice Presidency in the wake of the Watergate scandal The Watergate scandal was a political scandal in the United States in the 1970s, resulting from the break-in into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. Effects of the scandal ultimately led to the resignation of the United States President Richard Nixon on August 9, 1974. It also. It pitted incumbent President The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is one of only two nationally elected federal officers, the other being the Vice President of the United States Gerald Ford Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974. As the first person appointed to the vice-presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment, when he became President upon Richard Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974, he also, the Republican candidate, against the relatively unknown former governor of Georgia The following is a list of Governors of the State of Georgia and governors of the British colony of Georgia, Jimmy Carter James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981 and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office. Before he became President, Carter served two terms as a Georgia State Senator and one as Governor of Georgia,, the Democratic candidate. Ford was saddled with a slow economy An economy consists of the economic system of a country or other area, the labor, capital and land resources, and the economic agents that socially participate in the production, exchange, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area. A given economy is the end result of a process that involves its technological evolution, and paid a political price for his pardon A pardon is the forgiveness of a crime and the penalty associated with it. It is granted by a head of state, such as a monarch or president, or by a competent church authority. Commutation is an associated term, meaning the lessening of the penalty of the crime without forgiving the crime itself. A reprieve is the temporary postponement of of Nixon. Carter ran as a Washington outsider and reformer A reform movement is a kind of social movement that aims to make gradual change, or change in certain aspects of society, rather than rapid or fundamental changes. A reform movement is distinguished from more radical social movements such as revolutionary movements and won a narrow victory. He was the first president elected from the Deep South The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period. The Deep South was also commonly referred to as the Lower South since Zachary Taylor Zachary Taylor was the 12th President of the United States and an American military leader. Initially uninterested in politics, Taylor nonetheless ran as a Whig in the 1848 presidential election, defeating Lewis Cass and becoming the first President never to have held any previous elected office. Taylor was the last President to hold slaves while in 1848. Eugene McCarthy Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy was an American politician, poet, and a long-time member of the United States Congress from Minnesota. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the U.S. Senate from 1959 to 1971, a former Democratic Senator from Minnesota, ran as an independent candidate.
Contents |
Nominations
Democratic Party
Main article: Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 1976Democratic candidates
- Jimmy Carter James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981 and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office. Before he became President, Carter served two terms as a Georgia State Senator and one as Governor of Georgia,, former governor of Georgia Georgia is bordered on the south by Florida; on the east by the Atlantic Ocean and South Carolina; on the west by Alabama and by Florida in the south; and on the north by Tennessee and North Carolina. The northern part of the state is in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a mountain range in the vast Appalachian Mountains system. The central piedmont
- Jerry Brown Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown, Jr. is an American politician. He is a former California Governor (1975-1983) having been preceded by Ronald Reagan and was also the Secretary of State of California. Currently serving as California's Attorney General, he is facing former eBay CEO Meg Whitman for Governor of California in the 2010 general, governor of California California's geography ranges from the Pacific coast to the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the east, to Mojave desert areas in the southeast and the Redwood–Douglas fir forests of the northwest. The center of the state is dominated by the Central Valley, one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world. California is the most
- George Wallace George Corley Wallace, Jr. was the 45th Governor of Alabama, serving four terms: 1963–1967, 1971–1979 and 1983–1987. "The most influential loser" in 20th-century U.S. politics, according to biographers Dan T. Carter and Stephan Lesher, he ran for US president four times, running officially as a Democrat three times and in the, governor of Alabama From the American Civil War until World War II, Alabama, like many Southern states, suffered economic hardship, in part because of continued dependence on agriculture. Despite the growth of major industries and urban centers, white rural interests dominated the state legislature until the 1960s, while urban interests and African Americans were
- Morris Udall Morris King "Mo" Udall was an American politician who served as a U.S. Representative from Arizona from May 2, 1961 to May 4, 1991. A former professional basketball player with the old National Basketball League Denver Nuggets, noted for his liberal views, Mo Udall was a tall (6'5"), Lincolnesque figure with a self-deprecating wit, U.S. representative from Arizona Arizona is the 48th state and last of the contiguous states admitted to the Union, achieving statehood on February 14, 1912 - the 50th anniversary of Arizona's recognition as a territory of the United States. Arizona is noted for its desert climate, exceptionally hot summers, and mild winters, however it also features pine forests and mountain
- Henry M. Jackson Henry Martin "Scoop" Jackson was a U.S. Congressman and Senator from the state of Washington from 1941 until his death. Jackson was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972 and 1976, U.S. senator from Washington
- Frank Church Frank Forrester Church III was a United States Senator from Idaho, serving four terms from 1957 to 1981. Church was a member of the Idaho Democratic Party, U.S. senator from Idaho Idaho is a mostly mountainous state, with an area larger than all of New England. It is landlocked, surrounded by the states of Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Montana and the Canadian Province of British Columbia. However, the network of dams and locks on the Columbia River and Snake River make the city of Lewiston the farthest inland
- Robert Byrd Robert Carlyle Byrd is the senior United States Senator from West Virginia, and a member and former Senate Leader of the Democratic Party. Byrd has been a Senator since January 3, 1959 and is the longest-serving member in the Senate's history; he has been the Dean of the Senate since 2003. He is also the oldest current member of the United States, U.S. senator from West Virginia West Virginia became a state following the Wheeling Conventions, breaking away from Virginia during the American Civil War. The new state was admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863, and was a key Civil War border state. West Virginia was the only state to form by seceding from a Confederate state, and was one of only two states formed during the
- Sargent Shriver Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr. is an American Democratic politician and activist. Known as "Sargent", Shriver is best known as part of the Kennedy family, the driving force behind the creation of the Peace Corps, and the Democratic Party's replacement candidate for U.S. vice president — having replaced nominee Thomas Eagleton, who, former U.S. ambassador to France from Maryland Maryland is a major center for life sciences research and development. With more than 350 biotechnology companies located there, Maryland is the third-largest nexus in this field in the United States
- Fred R. Harris Fred Roy Harris was a Democratic United States Senator from the state of Oklahoma from 1964 until 1973, former U.S. senator from Oklahoma A major producer of natural gas, oil and agriculture, Oklahoma relies on an economic base of aviation, energy, telecommunications, and biotechnology. It has one of the fastest growing economies in the nation, ranking among the top states in per capita income growth and gross domestic product growth. Oklahoma City and Tulsa serve as Oklahoma's
- Birch Bayh, U.S. senator from Indiana Indiana has several metropolitan areas with populations greater than 100,000 as well as a number of smaller industrial cities and small towns. It is home to several major sports teams and athletic events including the NFL's Indianapolis Colts, the NBA's Indiana Pacers, the Indianapolis 500 motorsports race . Residents of Indiana are known as
- Lloyd Bentsen Lloyd Millard Bentsen, Jr. was a four-term United States senator (1971 until 1993) from Texas and the Democratic Party nominee for Vice President in 1988 on the Michael Dukakis ticket. He also served in the House of Representatives from 1949 to 1955. In his later political life, he was Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and the U.S. Treasury, U.S. senator from Texas Houston is the largest city in Texas and the fourth-largest in the United States, while San Antonio is the second largest in the state and seventh largest in the United States. Dallas–Fort Worth and Greater Houston are the fourth and sixth largest United States metropolitan areas, respectively. Other major cities include El Paso and Austin—the
- Terry Sanford James Terry Sanford was a United States politician and educator from North Carolina. A member of the Democratic Party, Sanford was the Governor of North Carolina (1961–1965), a two-time U.S. Presidential candidate in the 1970s and a U.S. Senator (1986–1993). Sanford was a strong proponent of education and introduced a number of reforms and new, former Governor of North Carolina The Governor of North Carolina is the top executive of the government of the U.S. state of North Carolina. Bev Perdue, the current governor, is North Carolina's first female governor
- Milton Shapp, governor of Pennsylvania Pennsylvania has 51 miles of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles (92 km) of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary
Candidates gallery
The surprise winner of the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination was Jimmy Carter, a former state senator and governor of Georgia. When the primaries began Carter was relatively unknown at the national level, and many political pundits regarded a number of better-known candidates, such as Senator Henry M. Jackson of Washington, Governor George Wallace of Alabama, and California Governor Jerry Brown, as the favorites for the nomination. However, in the wake of the Watergate scandal, Carter realized that his status as a Washington "outsider", political centrist, and moderate reformer could give him an advantage over his better-known "establishment" rivals. Carter also took advantage of the record number of state primaries and caucuses in 1976 to eliminate his better-known rivals one-by-one. By June 1976 he had captured more than enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination. At the 1976 Democratic National Convention Carter easily won the nomination on the first ballot; he then chose Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale, a liberal and political protégé of Hubert Humphrey, as his running mate.
Republican Party
Main article: Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 1976Republican candidates
- Gerald Ford, President of the United States from Michigan
- Ronald Reagan, former governor of California
- Harold E. Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota and candidate for the 1948, 1952, 1964, 1968 and 1972 nominations
Candidates gallery
|
Former Governor Harold Stassen of Minnesota |
The contest for the Republican Party's presidential nomination in 1976 was between two serious candidates: Gerald Ford, the leader of the GOP's moderate wing and the incumbent President, from Michigan; and Ronald Reagan, the leader of the GOP's conservative wing and the former two-term governor of California. The primary contest between the two men was hard-fought and relatively even; by the start of the Republican Convention in August 1976 the race for the nomination was still too close to call. Ford defeated Reagan by a narrow margin on the first ballot at the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City, and chose Senator Robert Dole of Kansas as his running mate.
General election
Fall campaign
Carter and Ford in debate.One of the advantages Ford held over Carter as the general election campaign began was that, as President, he was privileged to preside over events dealing with the United States Bicentennial; this often resulted in favorable publicity for Ford. The Washington, D.C. fireworks display on the Fourth of July was presided over by the President and televised nationally.[1] On July 7, 1976, the President and First Lady served as hosts at a White House state dinner for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip of the United Kingdom, which was televised on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) network. These events were part of Ford's "Rose Garden" strategy to win the election; instead of appearing as a typical politician, Ford presented himself as a "tested leader" who was busily fulfilling the role of national leader and Chief Executive. Not until October did Ford leave the White House to actively campaign across the nation.
Jimmy Carter ran as a reformer who was "untainted" by Washington political scandals,[citation needed] which many voters found attractive in the wake of the Watergate scandal, which had led to President Richard Nixon's resignation. Ford, although personally unconnected with Watergate, was seen by many as too close to the discredited Nixon administration, especially after Ford granted Nixon a presidential pardon for any crimes he may have committed during his term of office. Ford's pardon of Nixon caused his popularity, as measured by public-opinion polls, to plummet. Ford's refusal to publicly explain his reasons for pardoning Nixon (he would do so in his memoirs several years later), also hurt his image. His son, Jack Ford, gave an interview in 1976 in which he stated that his father felt that he "(doesn't) have to prove anything" regarding the pardon of Nixon, and thus did not feel compelled to talk about it.[2]
Ford unsuccessfully asked Congress to end the 1950s-era price controls on natural gas, which caused a dwindling of American natural gas reserves after the 1973 Oil Crisis.[3] Carter stated during his campaign that he opposed the ending of the price controls and thought such a move would be "disastrous."[3]
After the Democratic National Convention, Carter held a huge 33-point lead over Ford in the polls. However, as the campaign continued, the race greatly tightened. The closeness of the race is normally attributed to three causes. Most importantly, Carter confirmed a promise of a full pardon to Christian and other religious and political refugees and other opponents to the Vietnam War (Ford had issued only a conditional amnesty) draft dodgers in response to a question posed by a reporter during the presidential debates, a promise which froze Ford's poll numbers in Ohio, Wisconsin, Hawaii, and Mississippi (Ford needed to convert only 11,000 votes in Ohio and one of the other three states in order to win). Americans viewed the pardon as the only true way to end the bitterly hated Vietnam War. Earlier, Playboy magazine had published a controversial interview with Carter; in the interview, Carter admitted to having "lusted in his heart" for women other than his wife, which cut into his support among women and evangelical Christians. Also, on September 24, Ford performed well in what was the first televised presidential debate since 1960. Polls taken after the debate showed that most viewers felt that Ford was the winner. Carter was also hurt by Ford's charges that he lacked the necessary experience to be an effective national leader, and that Carter was vague on many issues. Carter pledged to end desegregation busing.[4]
Carter campaign headquartersHowever, Ford also committed a costly blunder in the campaign that halted his momentum. During the second presidential debate on October 6, Ford stumbled when he asserted that "there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration." He added that he did not "believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union," and made the same claim with regards to Yugoslavia and Romania.[5] Ford refused to retract his statement for almost a week after the debate. Neo-conservatives, who were becoming increasingly anti-Soviet, were appalled. Combined with Carter's pledge of a pardon for all Vietnam War opponents and refugees, Ford's surge stalled and Carter was able to maintain a slight lead in the polls.
A vice-presidential debate between Robert Dole and Walter Mondale also hurt the Republican ticket when Dole asserted that military unpreparedness on the part of Democratic presidents was responsible for all of the wars the U.S. had fought in the twentieth century. Dole, a World War II veteran, noted that in every twentieth-century war from World War I to the Vietnam War, a Democrat had been President. Dole then pointed out that the number of U.S. casualties in "Democrat wars" was roughly equal to the population of Detroit. Many voters felt that Dole's criticism was unfairly harsh and that his dispassionate delivery made him seem cold. One factor which did help Ford in the closing days of the campaign was a series of popular television appearances he did with Joe Garagiola, Sr., a retired baseball star for the St. Louis Cardinals and a well-known announcer for NBC Sports. Garagiola and Ford appeared in a number of shows in several large cities. During the show Garagiola would ask Ford questions about his life and beliefs; the shows were so informal, relaxed, and laid-back that some television critics labelled them the "Joe and Jerry Show." Ford and Garagiola obviously enjoyed one another's company, and they remained friends after the election was over.
Results
Election results by county. Jimmy Carter Gerald FordDespite his campaign's blunders, Ford managed to close the remaining gap in the polls and by election day the race was judged to be even. Election day was November 2, and it took most of that night and the following morning to determine the winner. It wasn't until 3:30 am (EST), that the NBC television network was able to pronounce that Carter had carried Mississippi, and had thus accumulated more than the 270 electoral votes needed to win (seconds later, ABC News also declared Carter the winner based on projections for Carter in Wisconsin and Hawaii; CBS News announced Carter's victory at 3:45 am).[6] Carter defeated Ford by two percentage points in the national popular vote.
A campaign button from election night where Carter and Mondale spent the evening in Flint Michigan at a rally It is notable as only a handful of counties in Michigan went to Carter in 1976, and no surrounding counties where Carter held the rally went to him.The electoral vote was the closest since 1916; Carter took 23 states with 297 electoral votes, while Ford won 27 states and 240 electoral votes (one elector from Washington state, pledged to Ford, voted for Reagan). Carter's victory came primarily from his near-sweep of the South (he lost only Virginia), and his narrow victories in large Northern states such as New York, and Pennsylvania. Ford did well in the West, carrying every state except Hawaii. The states that ultimately decided the election were Wisconsin (1.68% margin) and Ohio (.27% margin), both won by Carter. Had Ford won these states and all other states he carried, he would have won the presidency. The 27 states Ford won were and remain the most states ever carried by a losing candidate.
Carter was the first Democrat since John F. Kennedy in 1960 to carry the states of the Deep South, and the first since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to carry an unquestionable majority of southern states. Carter performed very strongly in his home state of Georgia, carrying 66.7% of the vote and every county in the state. His 50.1% of the vote was only the second time since 1964 that a Democrat managed to obtain a majority of the popular vote in a presidential election until Barack Obama won about 53% of the vote 32 years later. Carter is just one of five Democrats to gain a majority of the popular vote since the Civil War, with the others being Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Samuel Tilden, and Barack Obama. Tilden, although winning the popular vote, was declared to have lost the electoral college vote to Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 as part of a political deal with Southern Democrats to end Reconstruction.
Gerald Ford (right) watching election returns with Joe Garagiola on election night in 1976. Garagiola is reacting to television reports that Ford had just lost Texas to Carter.Had Ford won the election, the provisions of the 22nd amendment would have disqualified him from running in 1980, because he had served more than two years of Nixon's remaining term.
Statistics
| Presidential candidate | Party | Home state | Popular vote | Electoral vote | Running mate | Running mate's home state | Running mate's electoral vote | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Count | Pct | |||||||
| James Earl Carter, Jr. | Democratic | Georgia | 40,831,881 | 50.08% | 297 | Walter Frederick Mondale | Minnesota | 297 |
| Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. | Republican | Michigan | 39,148,634 | 48.02% | 240 | Bob Dole | Kansas | 241 |
| Ronald Wilson Reagan | Republican | California | —(a) | —(a) | 1 | |||
| Eugene McCarthy | (none) | Minnesota | 740,460 | 0.91% | 0 | (b) | (b) | 0 |
| Roger MacBride | Libertarian | Vermont | 172,553 | 0.21% | 0 | David Bergland | California | 0 |
| Lester Maddox | American Independent | Georgia | 170,274 | 0.21% | 0 | William Dyke | Wisconsin | 0 |
| Thomas J. Anderson | American | (c) | 158,271 | 0.19% | 0 | Rufus Shackelford | 0 | |
| Peter Camejo | Socialist Workers | California | 90,986 | 0.11% | 0 | Willie Mae Reid | 0 | |
| Gus Hall | Communist | New York | 58,709 | 0.07% | 0 | Jarvis Tyner | 0 | |
| Margaret Wright | People's | 49,013 | 0.06% | 0 | Benjamin Spock | 0 | ||
| Lyndon LaRouche | U.S. Labor | New York | 40,043 | 0.05% | 0 | R. Wayne Evans | 0 | |
| Other | 70,785 | 0.08% | — | Other | — | |||
| Total | 81,531,584 | 100% | 538 | 538 | ||||
| Needed to win | 270 | 270 | ||||||
Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. 1976 Presidential Election Results. Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections (August 7, 2005).
Source (Electoral Vote): Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (August 7, 2005).
(a) Mike Padden, a Republican faithless elector from Washington, gave Ronald Reagan one electoral vote. (b) The running mate of McCarthy varied from state to state. (c) Research has not yet determined whether Anderson's home state was Tennessee or Texas at the time of the 1976 election.
Close states
States where margin of victory was under 5%
- Oregon, 0.17%
- Ohio, 0.27%
- Maine, 0.84%
- Iowa, 1.01%
- Oklahoma, 1.21%
- Virginia, 1.34%
- South Dakota, 1.48%
- Wisconsin, 1.68%
- California, 1.78%
- Mississippi, 1.88%
- Illinois, 1.97%
- New Jersey, 2.16%
- New Mexico, 2.47%
- Hawaii, 2.53%
- Pennsylvania, 2.66%
- Texas, 3.17%
- Missouri, 3.63%
- Washington, 3.88%
- Nevada, 4.36%
- New York, 4.43%
States where margin of victory was more than 5%, but less than 10%
- Connecticut, 5.16%
- Florida, 5.29%
- Michigan, 5.39%
- Delaware, 5.41%
- Louisiana, 5.78%
- North Dakota, 5.86%
- Maryland, 6.08%
- Kentucky, 7.18%
- Montana, 7.44%
- Kansas, 7.55%
- Indiana, 7.62%
Voter demographics
| Social groups and the presidential vote, 1980 and 1976 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Size[A 1] | '80 Carter | '80 Reagan | '80 Anderson | '76 Carter | '76 Ford | |
| Party | ||||||
| Democratic | 43 | 66 | 26 | 6 | 77 | 22 |
| Independent | 23 | 30 | 54 | 12 | 43 | 54 |
| Republican | 28 | 11 | 84 | 4 | 9 | 90 |
| Ideology | ||||||
| Liberal | 18 | 57 | 27 | 11 | 70 | 26 |
| Moderate | 51 | 42 | 48 | 8 | 51 | 48 |
| Conservative | 31 | 23 | 71 | 4 | 29 | 70 |
| Ethnicity | ||||||
| Black | 10 | 82 | 14 | 3 | 82 | 16 |
| Hispanic | 2 | 54 | 36 | 7 | 75 | 24 |
| White | 88 | 36 | 55 | 8 | 47 | 52 |
| Sex | ||||||
| Female | 48 | 45 | 46 | 7 | 50 | 48 |
| Male | 52 | 37 | 54 | 7 | 50 | 48 |
| Religion | ||||||
| Protestant | 46 | 37 | 56 | 6 | 44 | 55 |
| White Protestant | 41 | 31 | 62 | 6 | 43 | 57 |
| Catholic | 25 | 40 | 51 | 7 | 54 | 44 |
| Jewish | 5 | 45 | 39 | 14 | 64 | 34 |
| Family income | ||||||
| Less than US$10,000 | 13 | 50 | 41 | 6 | 58 | 40 |
| $10,000–$14,999 | 15 | 47 | 42 | 8 | 55 | 43 |
| $15,000–$24,999 | 29 | 38 | 53 | 7 | 48 | 50 |
| $25,000–$50,000 | 24 | 32 | 58 | 8 | 36 | 62 |
| Over $50,000 | 5 | 25 | 65 | 8 | — | — |
| Occupation | ||||||
| Professional or manager | 39 | 33 | 56 | 9 | 41 | 57 |
| Clerical, sales, white-collar | 11 | 42 | 48 | 8 | 46 | 53 |
| blue-collar | 17 | 46 | 47 | 5 | 57 | 41 |
| Agriculture | 3 | 29 | 66 | 3 | — | — |
| Unemployed | 3 | 55 | 35 | 7 | 65 | 34 |
| Education | ||||||
| Less than high school | 11 | 50 | 45 | 3 | 58 | 41 |
| High school graduate | 28 | 43 | 51 | 4 | 54 | 46 |
| Some college | 28 | 35 | 55 | 8 | 51 | 49 |
| College graduate | 27 | 35 | 51 | 11 | 45 | 55 |
| Union membership | ||||||
| Labor union household | 28 | 47 | 44 | 7 | 59 | 39 |
| No member of household in union | 62 | 35 | 55 | 8 | 43 | 55 |
| Age | ||||||
| 18–21 years old | 6 | 44 | 43 | 11 | 48 | 50 |
| 22–29 years old | 17 | 43 | 43 | 11 | 51 | 46 |
| 30–44 years old | 31 | 37 | 54 | 7 | 49 | 49 |
| 45–59 years old | 23 | 39 | 55 | 6 | 47 | 52 |
| 60 years or older | 18 | 40 | 54 | 4 | 47 | 52 |
| Region | ||||||
| East | 25 | 42 | 47 | 9 | 51 | 47 |
| South | 27 | 44 | 51 | 3 | 54 | 45 |
| White South | 22 | 35 | 60 | 3 | 46 | 52 |
| Midwest | 27 | 40 | 51 | 7 | 48 | 50 |
| Far West | 19 | 35 | 53 | 9 | 46 | 51 |
| Community size | ||||||
| City over 250,000 | 18 | 54 | 35 | 8 | 60 | 40 |
| Suburb/small city | 53 | 37 | 53 | 8 | 53 | 47 |
| Rural/town | 29 | 39 | 54 | 5 | 47 | 53 |
Source: CBS News/ New York Times interviews with 12,782 voters as they left the polls, as reported in the New York Times, November 9, 1980, p. 28, and in further analysis. The 1976 data are from CBS News interviews.
- ^ “Size” = share of 1980 national total
Miscellaneous
- The 1976 election was the first presidential election since 1932 which resulted in an incumbent President being defeated for re-election as a major party candidate. Four years later, in 1980, this event would occur again when Ronald Reagan would defeat President Carter in the general election and again, in 1992, when Bill Clinton defeated incumbent George H. W. Bush in his bid for re-election.
- This was the last time that a Democratic candidate carried any of the following states: Texas, South Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama. North Carolina did not vote for a Democratic candidate again until Obama in 2008. Obama also carried Virginia, the one state in the South that Carter did not win.[7]
- As of 2008, Jimmy Carter was the last Democrat to win election to the Presidency while losing California, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Iowa, Michigan, Illinois, New Jersey, Vermont, New Hampshire, or Connecticut; Bill Clinton and Barack Obama would win them all, and in the close elections of 2000 and 2004, Al Gore and John Kerry would win all but one or two of them.
- 1976 marked the first year that a television news network used colors to represent the states won by the candidates. John Chancellor, the anchorman for the NBC Nightly News, suggested to his network's engineers that they create a large electronic map of the United States; the map was placed in the network's election-night news studio. If Carter carried a state it would light up in red, if Ford won a state it would light up in blue. The feature proved to be so popular that all three major news networks would adopt the feature for the 1980 presidential election, and it has since become a staple of election-night broadcasts, although the colors for both parties have been reversed.
- This election was the first time since 1908, and last time to date, that Nevada did not back the winning candidate. It was also the first election that New Mexico did not back the winning candidate since it had achieved statehood in 1912.
- Although he lost, Ford carried 27 out of 50 states, the most ever won by a losing candidate. He became the second and, so far, the last person to not win the presidency while carrying more than half the states. The first was Nixon in 1960, who won in 26 states.
See also
- History of the United States (1964–1980)
- United States Senate election, 1976
References
- ^ Election of 1976: A Political Outsider Prevails. C-SPAN. Retrieved on 2006-12-31.
- ^ Ford, Jack. "My Father the President" Best Life 5 no5 pgs. 126-7 June/July 200.'
- ^ a b Frum, David (2000). How We Got Here: The '70s. New York, New York: Basic Books. pp. 321–322. ISBN 0465041957.
- ^ Frum, David (2000). How We Got Here: The '70s. New York, New York: Basic Books. p. 265. ISBN 0465041957.
- ^ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/debatingourdestiny/76debates/2_b.html
- ^ Jules Witcover. Marathon: The Pursuit of the Presidency, 1972–1976 (New York: Viking), p. 11.
- ^ year=1976&fips=51&f=1&off=0&elect=0 1976 Presidential General Election Results - Virginia
External links
- 1976 popular vote by counties
- 1976 popular vote by states (with bar graphs)
- How close was the 1976 election? - Michael Sheppard, Michigan State University
Navigation
|
||||||||
|
|||||||
Categories: United States presidential election, 1976 | History of the United States (1964–1980)
|
155px x 400px | 22.30kB
[source page]
In the United States Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter a Democrat won the 1976 presidential elections Little known before his election Carter turned around the American public
