Ronald Reagan 1980 presidential campaign

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Ronald Reagan for President 1980
Campaign
Candidate
AffiliationRepublican Party
Status
  • Announced: November 13, 1979
  • Presumptive nominee: May 24, 1980
  • Official nominee: July 17, 1980
  • Won election: November 4, 1980
  • Inaugurated: January 20, 1981
Key people
Slogan
  • Let's Make America Great Again
  • Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Years Ago?
  • The Time Is Now for Strong Leadership[1]

In 1980, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush were elected president and vice president of the United States. They defeated the incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter and Vice President Walter Mondale.

Reagan, a Republican and former governor of California, announced his third presidential bid in a nationally televised speech from New York City in 1979. He campaigned extensively for the primaries after losing the Iowa caucus to former congressman and director of the Central Intelligence Agency Bush. In the primaries, he won 44 states and 59.8 percent of the vote. He decided initially to nominate former president Gerald Ford as his running mate, but Ford wanted such extended powers as vice president, especially over foreign policy, that their ticket would effectively amount to a "co-presidency". As a result, negotiations to form a Reagan–Ford ticket ceased. Reagan then selected Bush as his vice-presidential running mate.

At the 1980 Republican National Convention, Reagan garnered the required delegates to be the official nominee. With Carter's declining approval ratings and popularity, U.S. senator Ted Kennedy challenged him at the Democratic primaries, but Carter was re-nominated. John B. Anderson, who was a presidential candidate for the Republican Party, left the party and entered the race as an independent candidate. On July 19, Reagan opened his campaign with a tumultuous rally in Texas. There he proclaimed the campaign slogan, "We Can Make America Great Again." He called for a drastic cut in "big government" and pledged to deliver a balanced budget for the first time since 1969. At a rally in New York on August 5, Reagan proposed a youth differential in the minimum wage law, for encouraging businesses to hire unskilled and unemployed black youths. Appealing to black voters, he said, "What I want for America is ... pretty much what the overwhelming majority of black Americans also want."

Two presidential debates were conducted, but Carter refused to take part if Anderson was included; the first debate was between only Reagan and Anderson. A week before election day, another debate was organized between President Carter and Reagan; Anderson was not invited. On election day, Reagan won the election by a landslide winning 51 percent of the popular vote with 489 electoral votes to Carter's 49 electoral votes. At 69 years old, Reagan was then the oldest non-incumbent presidential candidate to win a presidential election. He was inaugurated on January 20, 1981.

Background

Photographic head shot of Ronald Reagan wearing a cowboy hat
Ronald Reagan in 1976

Ronald Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois, in 1911.[2] After graduating from Eureka College in 1932, he worked as a radio commentator and later became a Hollywood movie actor and union leader.[3] Initially a Democrat, he became a Republican in 1962.[4] While endorsing the Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, he gave his famous "A Time for Choosing" speech, which earned him national attention as a new conservative spokesman.[5] In late 1965, he announced his campaign for governor of California in the 1966 gubernatorial election.[6] He won the election, becoming the 33rd governor of California. He was a presidential candidate in the 1968 Republican presidential primaries, but lost to former vice president Richard Nixon in the delegate count, despite winning the popular vote.[7] He was re-elected as governor in 1970 with almost 53 percent of the vote.[8]

After leaving office in 1975, he began his 1976 presidential campaign against the incumbent President Gerald Ford.[9] They were neck and neck in the primaries, but in the end, Ford won more primary delegates than Reagan, but he did not have enough (1,130) delegates to secure the nomination. Both campaigns relied on votes from un-pledged delegates to secure the nomination.[10] Shortly before the 1976 Republican National Convention, Reagan announced Senator Richard Schweiker as his running mate, hoping to pry loose some delegates from Schweiker's home state of Pennsylvania;[11] Ford ultimately won the nomination with 1,187 delegates to Reagan's 1,070. He considered Reagan as his possible running mate, but after Reagan told a caucus of the Kansas delegation that he would not accept the vice-presidential nomination, Ford selected Bob Dole.[12] Ford later lost the election to Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter.[13] However, in Washington state, a faithless elector gave Reagan one electoral vote instead of Ford, believing that Ford's stance on abortion was unclear.[14]

Gaining the nomination

Preparing for a run

On November 13, 1979, Reagan announced his third presidential bid in a nationally televised speech from New York City,[15] the tenth Republican to do so.[16] His campaign capitalized on his acting skills, showing Reagan speaking in a presidential-looking room.[17] During the speech, he never directly mentioned President Carter but called the current administration's energy policies an "utter fiasco" and blamed government spending and deficits for high inflation.[18] He borrowed the phrase "rendezvous with destiny" from Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1936 acceptance speech.[19] He said:

We, today's living Americans have in our lifetime fought harder, paid a higher price for freedom and done more to advance the dignity of man than any people who have ever lived on this Earth. The citizens of this great nation want leadership, yes but not a "man on a white horse" demanding obedience to his commands. They want someone who believes they can "begin the world over again." A leader who will unleash their great strength and remove the roadblocks government has put in their way. I want to do that more than anything I've ever wanted. And it's something that I believe with God's help I can do.[20]

In a press conference the same day, Reagan named a young U.S. representative,

James Lake, said that, unlike the earlier version, the new proposal was general and did not spell out programs that would be transferred.[22] He was the front-runner candidate when he announced his campaign.[23]

Republican presidential primaries