1976 United States presidential election
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All 538 electoral votes of the Electoral College 270 electoral votes needed to win | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 53.5%[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Carter/Mondale, Red denotes those won by Ford/Dole. Ronald Reagan received an electoral vote from a "faithless elector" in Washington. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The United States presidential election of 1976 was the 48th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 2, 1976. It favored the relatively unknown former governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, the Democratic candidate[2] over the incumbent President Gerald Ford, the Republican candidate.
The election followed the resignation of President Richard Nixon in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Ford was saddled with a slow economy and paid a political price for his pardon of Nixon, although he did carry a majority of the states. Carter, running as a Washington outsider and reformer, won a narrow victory. He was the first president elected from the Deep South since Zachary Taylor in 1848.
Since 1976, no Democratic candidate has managed to match or better Carter's electoral performance in the American South, known to be a very Republican region in modern times.
Following the October 21, 2012, death of 1972 Democratic Party nominee George McGovern, this is now the earliest United States presidential election where one of the two major candidates is still living, that being the winning candidate Jimmy Carter, who is 88 years old.
Nominations
Democratic Party
Democratic candidates
- Jimmy Carter, former governor of Georgia
- Jerry Brown, governor of California
- George Wallace, governor of Alabama
- Morris Udall, U.S. representative from Arizona
- Henry M. Jackson, U.S. senator from Washington
- Frank Church, U.S. senator from Idaho
- Robert Byrd, U.S. senator from West Virginia
- Sargent Shriver, former U.S. ambassador to France, from Maryland
- Fred R. Harris, former U.S. senator from Oklahoma
- Birch Bayh, U.S. senator from Indiana
- Lloyd Bentsen, U.S. senator from Texas
- Terry Sanford, former governor of North Carolina
- Milton Shapp, governor of Pennsylvania
- Walter Fauntroy, U.S. delegate from Washington, D.C.
- Ellen McCormack, housewife
Candidates gallery
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Representative Morris Udall of Arizona
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Senator Henry M. Jackson of Washington -
Senator Frank Church of Idaho -
Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia -
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Former Senator Fred Harris of Oklahoma -
Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana -
Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas -
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Delegate Walter Fauntroy of Washington, D.C.
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, Congressman Morris Udall of Arizona, 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.
Senator Jackson made a fateful decision to not compete in the early Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, which Jimmy Carter won after liberals split their votes among four other candidates. Though Jackson went on to win the Massachusetts and New York primaries, he was forced to quit the race on May 1 after losing the critical Pennsylvania primary to Carter by twelve percentage points. Carter then defeated Governor Wallace, his main conservative challenger, by a wide margin in the North Carolina primary, thus forcing Wallace to end his campaign. Congressman Udall, a liberal, then became Carter's main challenger. He finished second to Carter in the New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, New York, Michigan, South Dakota, and Ohio primaries, and won the caucuses in his home state of Arizona, while running even with Carter in the New Mexico caucuses. However, the fact that Udall finished second to Carter in most of these races meant that Carter steadily accumulated more delegates for the nomination than he did.
As Carter closed in on the nomination, an "ABC" (Anybody But Carter) movement started among Northern and Western liberal Democrats who worried that Carter's Southern upbringing would make him too conservative for the Democratic Party. The leaders of the "ABC" movement - Idaho Senator Frank Church and California Governor Jerry Brown - both announced their candidacies for the Democratic nomination and defeated Carter in several late primaries. However, their campaigns started too late to prevent Carter from gathering the remaining delegates he needed to capture the nomination.
By June 1976, Carter 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; Udall finished in second place. Carter then chose Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale, a liberal and political protégé of Hubert Humphrey, as his running mate.
Republican Party
Republican candidates
- Gerald Ford, President of the United States from Michigan
- Ronald Reagan, former governor of California
Candidates gallery
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 presidential primary campaign 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 in place of incumbent Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. The 1976 Republican Convention was the last political convention to open with the presidential nomination still being undecided until the actual balloting at the convention.
Others
- Roger MacBride, who had gained fame in the 1972 election as a faithless elector, ran as the candidate of the Libertarian Party.
- Eugene McCarthy, a former Democratic Senator from Minnesota, ran as an independent candidate.
General election
Fall campaign
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.[3] On July 7, 1976, the President and First Lady served as hosts at a White House state dinner for 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 might 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.
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.[4] Carter stated during his campaign that he opposed the ending of the price controls and thought such a move would be "disastrous".[4]
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. During the campaign Playboy magazine published a controversial interview with Carter; in the interview, Carter admitted to having "lusted in my heart" for women other than his wife, which cut into his support among women and evangelical Christians. Also, on September 23, 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.[5]
However, 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.[6] (Yugoslavia was not a Warsaw Pact member.) Ford refused to retract his statement for almost a week after the debate. 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 20th century. Dole, a World War II veteran, noted that in every 20th-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
Despite 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).[7] Carter defeated Ford by two percentage points in the national popular vote.
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 Oklahoma), and his narrow victories in large Northern states such as New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Ford did well in the West, carrying every state except Hawaii. The most tightly contested state in the election was Oregon, which Ford won by a very narrow margin.
The states that ultimately secured Carter's victory were Wisconsin (1.68% margin) and Ohio (.27% margin). Had Ford won these states and all other states he carried, he would have won the presidency. Ford could also have won by carrying New York which was close (by a 4% margin), which would have brought his total electoral vote to 281 to Carter's 256. 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 the only 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 one of five Democrats since the American Civil War to gain a majority of the popular vote, with the others being Samuel Tilden, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Barack Obama.[8]
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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Count | Percentage | Vice-presidential candidate | Home state | Electoral vote | ||||
| 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 | ||||||
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Results by county, shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote
Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. "1976 Presidential Election Results". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved August 7, 2005.
Source (Electoral Vote): "Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved 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% (299 electoral votes):
- 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% (105 electoral votes):
- 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
Unique facts and characteristics
 | This section needs additional citations for verification. (September 2012) |
- As of 2012, the 1976 election was the most recent 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, one of only two states in the South that Carter did not win.[9]
- As of 2012, Jimmy Carter was the last Democrat to win election to the Presidency while losing any of the following states: California, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Nevada, Iowa, Maine, 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 would win all but Nevada and New Hampshire, and John Kerry would win all but Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico.
- 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.
- This election marks the only time in U.S. history in which the two major candidates and their running mates would all run for and lose the presidency, getting second in the general (Ford 1976, Carter 1980, Mondale 1984, Dole 1996).
See also
- Presidency of Jimmy Carter
- History of the United States (1964–1980)
- United States Senate election, 1976
Books
- Shirley, Craig (2005). Reagan's Revolution: The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started It All. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson. ISBN 978-0785260493.. review by Human Events
References
- ^ "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections". uselectionatlas.org. Retrieved 2012-10-21.
- ^ The 1976 Presidential Election
Gerald R. Ford (Republican) v. Jimmy Carter (Democrat) Retrieved 24 January 2013 - ^ Election of 1976: A Political Outsider Prevails. C-SPAN. Retrieved on 2012-06-20.
- ^ a b Frum, David (2000). How We Got Here: The '70s. New York, New York: Basic Books. pp. 321–322. ISBN 0-465-04195-7.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Frum, David (2000). How We Got Here: The '70s. New York, New York: Basic Books. p. 265. ISBN 0-465-04195-7.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ "Debating Our Destiny: The Second 1976 Presidential Debate - October 6, 1976". Pbs.org. 1976-10-06. Retrieved 2010-05-28.
- ^ Jules Witcover. Marathon: The Pursuit of the Presidency, 1972–1976 (New York: Viking), p. 11.
- ^ Six won the plurality of the popular vote: Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore. Though Gore won the plurality of the popular vote in 2000, his opponent won the majority of the electoral vote. Cleveland won the plurality of the popular vote in 1884, 1888, and 1892 along with the majority of the electoral vote in 1884 and 1892, but his opponent won the majority of the electoral vote in 1888. Wilson in 1912 and 1916, Truman in 1948, Kennedy in 1960, and Clinton in 1992 and 1996 all won the plurality of the popular vote and the majority of the electoral vote.
- ^ "1976 Presidential General Election Results - Virginia". Uselectionatlas.org. Retrieved 2010-05-28.
External links
- The Election Wall's 1976 Election Video Page
- 1976 popular vote by counties
- 1976 popular vote by states (with bar graphs)
- Campaign commercials from the 1976 election
- How close was the 1976 election? — Michael Sheppard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
