1980 United States presidential election and Related Topics

Jimmy Carter

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American former politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981.

The Carter family store (part of Carter's Boyhood Farm) in Plains, Georgia

Carter with Rosalynn Smith and his mother at his graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy on June 5, 1946

President Jimmy Carter, his wife and Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, USN (wearing tie) aboard the submarine USS Los Angeles (SSN-688) in 1977

Results of the 1970 gubernatorial election in Georgia, with blue counties supporting Carter and red ones voting for Hal Suit: the relative darkness of the shade shows greater support for a candidate.

Carter's official portrait as Governor of Georgia

Jimmy Carter's campaign button announcing his campaign with the slogan, "My name is Jimmy Carter, and I'm running for President."

Carter and President Gerald Ford debating at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia

Image of President Carter displayed in the National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC. Portrait by Robert Templeton.

Newly elected governor of Arkansas and future president Bill Clinton meets with President Carter in 1978.

Carter signing the Airline Deregulation Act, 1978

Anwar Sadat, Jimmy Carter and Menachem Begin meet on the Aspen Lodge patio of Camp David on September 6, 1978.

First Lady Rosalynn Carter, Tanzanian leader Julius Nyerere, and Carter, 1977

Carter with Nigerian leader Olusegun Obasanjo on April 1, 1978

Carter with King Hussein of Jordan and Shah of Iran in 1977

Carter and Leonid Brezhnev signing the SALT II treaty at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, June 18, 1979

Carter, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Zbigniew Brzezinski in September 1978

King Khalid of Saudi Arabia and Carter, October 1978

Countries visited by Carter during his presidency

Carter (third from left) with Martti Ahtisaari, William Hague, and Lakhdar Brahimi from The Elders group in London, July 24, 2013.

The state funeral of George H. W. Bush in December 2018. Carter and his wife Rosalynn can be seen on the far right of the photograph.

Carter with Justice Harry Blackmun, known for his Roe v. Wade majority opinion authorship

Farah Pahlavi, Empress of Iran, holds Jimmy Carter IV while Rosalynn Carter, Caron Carter and Chip Carter watch, January 1978.

James Earl Carter Presidential Statue by Frederick Hart (1994)

alt=Carter, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton standing next to each other.|Carter (right), walks with, from left, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton during the dedication of the William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, Arkansas on November 18, 2004

alt=Carter sitting in front of the U.S. flag|Carter during a Google Hangout session held during the LBJ Presidential Library Civil Rights Summit in 2014

alt=Carter, Obama, and Clinton standing together.|Carter (right) with President Barack Obama (center) and Bill Clinton (left) on August 28, 2013, the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington

alt=Carter observing a model replica of the USS Jimmy Carter, named after him.|Carter (left) with a replica of the {{USS|Jimmy Carter|SSN-23|6}} with Secretary of the Navy John H. Dalton (right) at a naming ceremony, April 28, 1998

alt=The Jimmy Carter Library and Museum during the daytime.|Jimmy Carter Library and Museum located in Atlanta, Georgia

Carter standing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, during his 1979 visit

Carter lost the 1980 presidential election in an electoral landslide to Republican nominee Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan

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American politician who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989.

Ronald Reagan's boyhood home in Dixon, Illinois

Capt. Ronald Reagan at Fort Roach, 1943 or 1944.

Guest stars for the premiere of The Dick Powell Show, 1961. Reagan can be seen wearing a ten-gallon hat on the far left.

Reagan testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee, October 1947

Reagan and his first wife Jane Wyman, 1942

Wedding of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, 1952. Matron of honor Brenda Marshall (left) and best man William Holden (right) were the sole guests.

Nancy and Ronald Reagan aboard a boat in California, 1964

The Reagans meet with President Richard Nixon and First Lady Pat Nixon, July 1970

Reagan and President Ford shake hands on the podium after Reagan narrowly lost the nomination at the 1976 Republican National Convention

Ronald Reagan, moderator Jon Breen, and Bush participate in the Nashua, New Hampshire presidential debate, 1980

President and Mrs. Reagan at the 1981 inauguration parade

Supreme Court justice-nominee Sandra Day O'Connor talks with Reagan outside the White House, July 15, 1981.

Reagan outlines his plan for Tax Reduction Legislation in a televised address from the Oval Office, July 1981

Reagan addresses Congress on the Program for Economic Recovery, April 28, 1981 (a few weeks after surviving the assassination attempt)

As the first U.S. president invited to speak before the British Parliament (June 8, 1982), Reagan predicted Marxism–Leninism would end up on the "ash heap of history".

Meeting with leaders of the Afghan Mujahideen in the Oval Office, 1983

Reagan with actress Sigourney Weaver and King Fahd of Saudi Arabia in 1985. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia supplied money and arms to the anti-Soviet fighters in Afghanistan.

Reagan (far left) and First Lady Nancy Reagan pay their respects to the 17 American victims of the April 18 attack on the U.S. embassy by Hezbollah in Beirut, 1983

1984 presidential electoral votes by state. Reagan (red) won every state except Mondale's home state of Minnesota; Mondale also carried the District of Columbia.

Reagan is sworn in for a second term as president by Chief Justice Burger in the Capitol rotunda

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (here with Reagan in 1986) granted the U.S. use of British airbases to launch the Libya attack.

Reagan (center) receives the Tower Commission Report regarding the Iran-Contra affair in the Cabinet Room with John Tower (left) and Edmund Muskie (right)

Challenging Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" at the Brandenburg Gate, June 12, 1987

Gorbachev and Reagan sign the INF Treaty at the White House, December 1987

The Reagans with a model of USS Ronald Reagan, May 1996

Reagan lying in state in the Capitol rotunda

A bronze statue of Reagan standing in the National Statuary Hall Collection

President Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev, 1985

Approval ratings for President Reagan (Gallup)

Former President Reagan returns to the White House to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bush, 1993

{{circa}} 1916–17. Pictured from left: Father Jack, older brother Neil, Reagan (with "Dutchboy" haircut), and mother Nelle

1920s. As a teenager, in Dixon, Illinois

{{circa|lk=no|1960}}. Hosting General Electric Theater

After failed presidential bids in 1968 and 1976, challenging and nearly defeating sitting president Gerald Ford in the latter's Republican primaries, Reagan easily won the Republican nomination in the 1980 presidential election and went on to defeat incumbent Democratic president Jimmy Carter.

Democratic Party (United States)

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One of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States.

Andrew Jackson was the seventh president of the United States (1829–1837) and the first Democratic president.

Martin Van Buren was the eighth president of the United States (1837–1841) and the second Democratic president.

The 1885 inauguration of Grover Cleveland, the only president with non-consecutive terms

Leaders of the Democratic Party during the first half of the 20th century on 14 June 1913: Secretary of State William J. Bryan, Josephus Daniels, President Woodrow Wilson, Breckinridge Long, William Phillips, and Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, 32nd and 33rd presidents of the United States (1933–1945; 1945–1953), featured on a campaign poster for the 1944 presidential election

John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, 35th and 36th presidents of the United States (1961–1963, 1963–1969)

Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the United States (1977–1981), delivering the State of the Union Address in 1979

Bill Clinton, 42nd president of the United States (1993–2001), at The Pentagon in 1998

Barack Obama speaking to College Democrats of America in 2007

President Barack Obama meeting with the Blue Dog Coalition in the State Dining Room of the White House in 2009

Eleanor Roosevelt at the 1956 Democratic National Convention in Chicago

President Barack Obama signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law at the White House on March 23, 2010

Secretary of State John Kerry addressing delegates at the United Nations before signing the Paris Agreement on April 22, 2016

Shirley Chisholm was the first major-party African American candidate to run nationwide primary campaigns.

President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Immigration Act of 1965 as Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Senators Edward M. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy and others look on

Then-Senator Barack Obama shaking hands with an American soldier in Basra, Iraq in 2008

President Jimmy Carter and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1978

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting with President Barack Obama at Ben Gurion Airport in 2013

Self-identified Democrats (blue) versus self-identified Republicans (red) (January–June 2010 data)

Higher percentages of Democrats than Republicans are members of union households.

Elected at age 33, Jon Ossoff is currently the youngest member of the U.S. Senate.

Hillary Clinton was the first woman to be nominated for president by a major party.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg

Julián Castro served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

U.S. opinion on gun control issues is deeply divided along political lines, as shown in this 2021 survey.

With the initial support of evangelical Christian voters in the South, Carter was temporarily able to reunite the disparate factions within the party, but inflation and the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979–1980 took their toll, resulting in a landslide victory for Republican presidential nominee Ronald Reagan in 1980, which shifted the political landscape in favor of the Republicans for years to come.

Ted Kennedy

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American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009.

John, Bobby, and Ted Kennedy during John's presidential campaign, July 1960, in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts

Ted Kennedy, accompanied by his brother Robert and sister-in-law Jacqueline, walks from the White House for the funeral procession accompanying President Kennedy's casket to Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle.

Kennedy with Massachusetts Governor Endicott Peabody and Boston Mayor John F. Collins in January 1964.

Kennedy giving a presentation on his healthcare proposal in June 1971

Senator Kennedy meeting with Justice Minister Horst Ehmke at Bonn, West Germany, in April 1971

President Jimmy Carter (right) with Senator Ted Kennedy in the Oval Office of the White House, December 1977

Kennedy with President Ronald Reagan in 1986

Senator Kennedy talking to sailors aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt, February 1987

Results of Kennedy's re-election to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts in 1994 against Republican challenger Mitt Romney

Kennedy's official Senate portrait in the 1990s

Kennedy at the 2002 signing of a border security bill, with Senator Dianne Feinstein and President George W. Bush

Kennedy and Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum after Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005, where the Patriots defeated the Eagles. Here Santorum wears a Patriots hat and presents Kennedy a bag of Philly cheesesteaks as part of a wager

Following his endorsement of Barack Obama, Kennedy staged a campaign appearance with Obama in Hartford, Connecticut, on February 4, 2008, the day before the Super Tuesday primaries.

Kennedy speaks during the first night of the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, while delegates hold signs reading "KENNEDY"

Kennedy with President Obama, the day the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act was signed, April 21, 2009, four months before Kennedy's death

Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Boston

Kennedy's grave at Arlington National Cemetery

Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Senator Ted Kennedy, and President John F. Kennedy in 1963

He ran in 1980 in the Democratic primary campaign for president, but lost to the incumbent president, Jimmy Carter.

Republican Party (United States)

8 links

One of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States.

Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States (1861–1865) and the first Republican to hold the office

Charles R. Jennison, an anti-slavery militia leader associated with the Jayhawkers from Kansas and an early Republican politician in the region

Ulysses S. Grant, 18th president of the United States (1869–1877)

James G. Blaine, 28th & 31st Secretary of State (1881; 1889–1892)

William McKinley, 25th president of the United States (1897–1901)

Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States (1901–1909)

Herbert Hoover, 31st president of the United States (1929–1933)

Ronald Reagan, 40th president of the United States (1981–1989)

Donald Trump, 45th president of the United States (2017–2021)

Calvin Coolidge, 30th president of the United States (1923–1929)

Arnold Schwarzenegger, 38th governor of California (2003–2011)

John McCain, United States senator from Arizona (1987–2018)

Donald Rumsfeld, 21st United States Secretary of Defense (2001–2006)

Colin Powell, 65th United States Secretary of State (2001–2005)

Newt Gingrich, 50th Speaker of the House of Representatives (1995–1999)

Annual population growth in the U.S. by county - 2010s

This map shows the vote in the 2020 presidential election by county.

Political Spectrum Libertarian Left Centrist Right Authoritarian

He'd go on to become governor of California two years later, and in 1980, win the presidency.

Presidency of Jimmy Carter

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Jimmy Carter's tenure as the 39th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 1977, and ended on January 20, 1981.

President Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter walk down Pennsylvania Avenue during Inauguration.

Robert Templeton's portrait of President Carter, displayed in the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.

Carter at Three Mile Island nuclear accident April 1, 1979

A map of the geopolitical situation in 1980

Carter meeting with Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, in Washington, D.C., September 6, 1977

President Jimmy Carter and Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II) treaty, June 18, 1979, in Vienna

Anwar Sadat, Jimmy Carter and Menachem Begin meet at Camp David on September 6, 1978.

Sadat, Carter and Begin shaking hands after signing Peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in the White House, March 27, 1979

The Iranian Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, meeting with Alfred Atherton, William H. Sullivan, Cyrus Vance, President Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski in Tehran, 1977

Carter and Omar Torrijos shake hands moments after the signing of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties.

Graph of Carter's Gallup approval ratings

His presidency ended following his defeat in the 1980 election by Republican Ronald Reagan.

John B. Anderson

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American lawyer and politician who served in the United States House of Representatives, representing Illinois's 16th congressional district from 1961 to 1981.

Anderson (far right) in a League of Women Voters-sponsored presidential forum alongside fellow Republican candidates, March 13, 1980

A campaign button for Anderson's independent campaign

Anderson speaking to students at the University of Michigan, September 3, 1980

In 1980, he ran an independent campaign for president, receiving 6.6% of the popular vote.

1976 United States presidential election

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The 48th quadrennial presidential election.

A Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale campaign poster.

First ballot vote for the presidential nomination by state delegations

The 1976 Republican National Convention at Kemper Arena in Kansas City. Vice Presidential nominee Bob Dole is on the far left, then Nancy Reagan, Ronald Reagan is at the center shaking hands with President Gerald Ford, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller is just to the right of Ford, followed by Susan Ford and First Lady Betty Ford.

Gerald Ford (right) watching election returns with Joe Garagiola on election night in 1976. Garagiola is reacting to television reports that Ford had just been projected as having lost Texas to Carter.

A campaign button from election eve where Carter and Mondale spent the evening in Flint Michigan at a rally It is notable as only a handful of counties in Michigan went to Carter in 1976, and no surrounding counties where Carter held the rally went to him.

Results by county, shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote

Thus, Carter's win represented the last victory in a period of political dominance by the Democratic Party known as the Fifth Party System that had begun in 1932 and would end in 1980 with Carter's defeat by Ronald Reagan.

Iranian students crowd the U.S. Embassy in Tehran (November 4, 1979)

Iran hostage crisis

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On November 4, 1979, 52 United States diplomats and citizens were held hostage after a group of militarized Iranian college students belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, who supported the Iranian Revolution, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and seized hostages.

Iran attempted to use the occupation to provide leverage in its demand for the return of the shah to stand trial in Iran

Anticipating the takeover of the embassy, the Americans tried to destroy classified documents in a furnace. The furnace malfunctioned and the staff was forced to use cheap paper shredders. Skilled carpet weavers were later employed to reconstruct the documents.

Two American hostages during the siege of the U.S. Embassy.

Barry Rosen, the embassy's press attaché, was among the hostages. The man on the right holding the briefcase is alleged by some former hostages to be future President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, although he, Iran's government, and the CIA deny this.

An anti-Iranian protest in Washington, D.C., in 1979. The front of the sign reads "Deport all Iranians" and "Get the hell out of my country", and the back reads "Release all Americans now".

A headline in an Islamic Republican newspaper on November 5, 1979, read "Revolutionary occupation of U.S. embassy".

A group photograph of the fifty-two hostages in a Wiesbaden hospital where they spent a few days after their release.

A heckler in Washington, D.C., leans across a police line toward a demonstration of Iranians in August 1980.

Americans expressed gratitude for Canadian efforts to rescue American diplomats during the hostage crisis.

Vice President George H. W. Bush and other VIPs wait to welcome the hostages home.

The hostages disembark Freedom One, an Air Force Boeing C-137 Stratoliner aircraft, upon their return.

A protest in Tehran on November 4, 2015, against the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.

Simulation of the first day of the event, 3 November 2016, Tehran

Operation Eagle Claw remnant in the former embassy

The former US embassy, known as the "espionage den," "den of espionage", and "nest of spies" by the Iranians after the crisis.

Political analysts cited the standoff as a major factor in the continuing downfall of Carter's presidency and his landslide loss in the 1980 presidential election; the hostages were formally released into United States custody the day after the signing of the Algiers Accords, just minutes after American President Ronald Reagan was sworn into office.