The election was held on November 4, 1980. Ronald Reagan with running mate George H.W. Bush beat Carter by almost 10 percentage points in the popular vote. Republicans also gained control of the Senate for the first time in twenty-five years on Reagan's coattails. The electoral college vote was a landslide, with 489 votes (representing 44 states) for Reagan and 49 votes for Carter (representing 6 states and the District of Columbia). NBC News projected Reagan as the winner at 8:15 pm EST (5:15 PST), before voting was finished in the West, based on exit polls. (It was the first time a broadcast network used exit polling to project a winner, and took the other broadcast networks by surprise.) Carter conceded defeat at 9:50 pm EST.[25][26] Carter's loss was the worst defeat for an incumbent President since Herbert Hoover lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 by a margin of 18%. Carter's defeat is the most lopsided defeat for any incumbent president in an election where only two candidates won electoral votes. Also, Jimmy Carter is the first incumbent Democrat to serve only one full term since James Buchanan and fail to secure re-election since Andrew Johnson (Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms while Harry Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson served one full term in addition to taking over after the deaths of Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy respectively).
John Anderson won 6.6% of the popular vote and failed to win any state outright. He found the most support in New England, fueled by liberal Republicans who felt Reagan was too far to the right; his best showing was in Massachusetts, where he won 15% of the popular vote. Conversely, Anderson performed worst in the South. Anderson failed to achieve the spoiler effect, due to Reagan's strong showing and the fact that he arguably attracted at least as many Democrats to his ticket as Republicans.
Libertarian Party candidate Ed Clark received 921,299 popular votes (1.1%). The Libertarians succeeded in getting Clark on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Clark's best showing was in Alaska, where he received 12% of the vote. As of 2008, this is the best performance by a Libertarian presidential candidate.
Reagan won 53% of the vote in reliably Democratic South Boston.[13]
Reagan's electoral college victory of 489 electoral votes (90.9% of the electoral vote) is the most lopsided electoral college victory for a non-incumbent President.
This was also the last election in which an incumbent president was defeated in two elections in a row. The only other time this happened was in 1892.
Ronald Reagan was re-elected following the November 6 election in an electoral and popular vote landslide, winning 49 states. Reagan won a record 525 electoral votes total (of 538 possible), and received 58.8 percent of the popular vote; despite Ferraro's selection, 55% of women who voted did so for Reagan,[24] and his 54 to 61% of the Catholic vote was the highest for a Republican candidate in history.[28]:191 Mondale's 13 electoral college votes (from his home state of Minnesota—which he won by 0.18%—and the District of Columbia) marked the lowest total of any major Presidential candidate since Alf Landon's 1936 loss to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Mondale's defeat was also the worst for any Democratic Party candidate in U.S. history in the Electoral College (and his 13 electoral votes the fewest any Democrat has won since Stephen A. Douglas claimed 12 in the 1860 election, when the Democratic vote was divided), though others, including Alton B. Parker, James M. Cox, John W. Davis, and George S. McGovern, did worse in the popular vote.
Psephologists pointed to "Reagan Democrats"—millions of Democrats who voted for Reagan, as in 1980. They characterized such Reagan Democrats as southern whites and northern blue collar workers who voted for Reagan because they credited him with the economic recovery, saw Reagan as strong on national security issues, and perceived the Democrats as supporting the poor and minorities at the expense of the middle class. The Democratic National Committee commissioned a study after the election that came to these conclusions, but suppressed the "explosive report" afraid that it would offend its key voters.[28]:186,191-193
This was the last election in which the Republican candidate carried every Northeastern state. Though even here, Reagan failed to carry Washington, D.C. This was representative of the future dominance of the Democratic Party in that region.
Get the HELL out of our party, and go back to the