Yes, because his own party wasn’t pouring $67M into attack ads against him, and he only had one opponent who ended up being his VP pick.
The bottom line is the party bosses are saying “it’s my party and i’ll cry if i want to”, they’re crying loudly like a bunch of spoiled brats, and they’re taking their ball and going home. Thereby handing the election to the Dems.
Sorry for mixing metaphors...
Eh, he also had a clear philosophy, a coterie of conservative intellectuals backing him and two decades of working in favor of freedom. As an aside, I think Reagan made a mistake with his VP pick; he should have listened to his wife and selected Paul Laxalt.