Overview

The 1980 presidential campaigns of both Republican Ronald Reagan and incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter were conducted during times of great domestic concern—times that also included the ongoing Iranian hostage crisis. Reagan's campaign emphasized many of his fundamental principles: lowering taxes to stimulate the economy, reducing government interference in people's lives, strengthening states' rights, building up the national defense, and restoring the U.S. Dollar to a gold standard.

Reagan's Campaign

After receiving the Republican nomination, Reagan selected George H.W. Bush, one of his primary opponents, to be his running mate. During the presidential campaign, reporters posed questions to Reagan about his stance on the Briggs Initiative (also known as Proposition 6), a ballot initiative in Reagan's home state of California that proposed the banning of gays, lesbians, and supporters of LGBT rights from working in California's public schools. As the former governor of California, Reagan's opposition to the initiative was instrumental in its landslide defeat by Californian voters. Reagan published an editorial in which he stated that "homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles..." and that prevailing scientific opinion suggests that a child's sexual orientation cannot be influenced by someone else.

Throughout the 1970's, the United States underwent a wrenching period of low economic growth, high inflation and interest rates, and intermittent energy crises. Reagan was a proponent of supply-side economics, which argues that economic growth can be created most effectively by offering incentives for people to produce (supply) goods and services. Such incentives included adjusting income tax and capital gains tax rates. Accordingly, Reagan promised an economic revival that would affect the entire population. Reagan theorized that cutting tax rates would actually increase tax revenues because the lower rates would encourage people to work harder in order to be able to keep more of their money.

Reagan called for a drastic cut in "big government" programs and pledged to deliver a balanced budget for the first time since 1969. In the Republican primaries, Bush famously called Reagan's economic policy "voodoo economics" because it promised to lower taxes and increase revenues at the same time.

Election Results

Reagan's showing in the October televised debate boosted his campaign. Weeks before the election, Reagan had trailed Carter in most polls. Following his sole debate with President Carter on October 29, however, Reagan overcame the poll deficit, and within one week, the Associated Press reported that the race was "too close to call." 

Reagan ended up winning the election in a landslide, carrying 44 states with 489 electoral votes to Carter's six states (as well as Washington, D.C.) and 49 electoral votes. Additionally, Reagan received 50.7% of the popular vote while Carter took only 41% (Independent John B. Anderson, a liberal Republican, received 6.7%). Republicans captured the Senate for the first time since 1952 and gained 34 House seats, but the Democrats retained a majority.

Reagan's victory was the result of a combination of dissatisfaction with the presidential leadership of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in the 1970s and the growth of the New Right. This group of conservative Americans included many very wealthy financial supporters and emerged in the wake of the social reforms and cultural changes of the 1960s and 1970s. Many were evangelical Christians, like those who joined Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, and opposed the legalization of abortion, the feminist movement, and sex education in public schools. Reagan also attracted people, often dubbed neoconservatives, who would not previously have voted for the same candidate as conservative Protestants did. Many were middle- and working-class people who resented the growth of federal and state governments, especially benefit programs, and the subsequent increase in taxes during the late 1960s and 1970s. They favored the tax revolts that swept the nation in the late 1970s under the leadership of predominantly older, white, middle-class Americans, which had succeeded in imposing radical reductions in local property and state income taxes.

Voter turnout reflected this new conservative swing, which not only swept Reagan into the White House but created a Republican majority in the Senate. Only 52%of eligible voters went to the polls in 1980, the lowest turnout for a presidential election since 1948. Those who did cast a ballot were older, whiter, and wealthier than those who did not vote. Strong support among white voters, those over 45 years of age, and those with incomes over $50,000 proved crucial for Reagan’s victory.

Reagan 1980 Campaign

Reagan campaigns with wife Nancy and Senator Strom Thurmond (right) in South Carolina, 1980.