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1984 United States presidential election

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Presidential electoral votes by state.

The U.S. presidential election of 1984 was a contest between the incumbent President Ronald Reagan and the former Vice President Walter Mondale and other candidates. Mondale lost the electoral vote in every state in the union except for his home state, Minnesota - which he won by fewer than 3,800 votes - and the District of Columbia. Reagan received 58.8% of the popular vote to Mondale's 40.6%.

Nominations

Republican Party nomination

President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Bush at the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas.

Ronald Reagan was unopposed as the nominee for the Republican Party. He was renominated by a vote of 2,233 to two abstaining.

For the only time in American history, the vice presidential roll call was taken concurrently with the presidential roll call. Results:

This was the last time in the 20th Century that the Vice Presidential candidate of either major party was nominated by roll call vote.

Democratic Party nomination

The field was crowded in the race for the Democratic nomination:

In the Iowa caucuses, the results were as follows: Mondale 45%, Hart 15%, McGovern 13%, Cranston 9%, Uncommitted 7%, Glenn 5%, Askew 3%, Jackson 3%, Hollings 0%.

In the New Hampshire primary, the results were as follows: Hart 37.3%, Mondale 27.9%, Glenn 12.0%, Jackson 5.3%, McGovern 5.2%, Reagan 5.0% (write-in votes), Hollings 3.5%, Cranston 2.1%, Askew 1.0%.

The field of candidates then shrank tremendously. Ultimately, only three candidates survived long enough to win states: Mondale, Hart, and Jackson.

Jackson was the second African-American (after Shirley Chisholm) to mount a nationwide campaign for the Presidency. He garnered 3.5 million votes during the primaries, third behind Hart and Mondale. He managed to win Virginia, South Carolina, and Louisiana, and split Mississippi, where there were two separate contests for Democratic delegates. Through the process, Jackson helped confirm the black electorate's importance to the Democratic Party in the South at the time. During the campaign, however, Jackson made an off-the-record reference to Jews as "Hymies" and New York City as "Hymietown", for which he later apologized. Nonetheless, the remark was widely publicized, and derailed his campaign for the nomination. Ending up, Jackson received 21% of the votes but only 8% of delegates, and he initially charged that his campaign was hurt by the same party rules that allowed Mondale to win. He also poured scorn on Mondale, saying that Hubert Humphrey was the "last significant politician out of the St. Paul-Minneapolis" area [1].

Hart managed to mount a very successful campaign, winning the key New Hampshire, Ohio, and California primaries as well as several others, especially in the west, but he couldn't overcome Mondale, who received the majority of the delegates. Mondale used the Wendy's slogan "Where's the beef?" to describe Hart's policies as lacking depth.

These were the convention's nomination tally:

When he made his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention, Mondale said: "Let's tell the truth. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did." Although Mondale intended this to demonstrate that he was honest while Reagan was hypocritical, it was widely remembered as simply a campaign pledge to raise taxes, and it likely damaged his electoral chances.

Vice-Presidential nominee

Mondale chose U.S. Rep. Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York as his running mate and she was confirmed by acclamation, making her the first woman nominated for that position by a major party.

Aides later said that Mondale was determined to establish a precedent with his vice presidential candidate, considering San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein, also a female, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, an African American, and San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros, a Hispanic, as other finalists for the nomination.[2] Unsuccessful nomination candidate Jackson derided Mondale's vice-presidential screening process as a "p.r. parade of personalities."

Others however preferred Senator Lloyd Bentsen because he would appeal to the Deep South. Nomination rival Gary Hart had also been lobbying for the vice-presidential spot on the ticket once it became apparent that Mondale had clinched the majority of delegates; Hart was expected to perform ten points better than Mondale in a hypothetical matchup with President Reagan.

Ferraro, as Catholic, came under fire from the Roman Catholic Church for being pro-choice, which contradicts the Church's dogma. Further controversy erupted over her flip-flopping regarding the release of her husband's tax returns.

General election

Campaign

File:Mondale reagan debate.jpg
"I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience." quipped Reagan during the presidential debates.

Mondale ran a liberal campaign, supporting a nuclear freeze and the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). He spoke against what he considered to be unfairness in Reagan's economic policies and the need to reduce federal budget deficits. Not only was he up against a popular incumbent, but his campaign was widely considered to be lackluster. His stands on the ERA and national security turned out to be unpopular, as the ERA had stalled and was facing growing opposition, while many believed that he underestimated the threat of the Soviet Union. Mondale was largely perceived as supporting the poor at the expense of the middle class, which cost him the support of traditional Democrats such as southern whites and northern blue collar workers.

At a campaign stop in Hammonton, New Jersey, Reagan said, "America's future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts. It rests in the message of hope in songs of a man so many young Americans admire, New Jersey's Bruce Springsteen." The Reagan campaign briefly used "Born in the U.S.A." as a campaign song, without permission, until Springsteen, a lifelong Democrat, requested that they stop.

The Reagan campaign was very skilled at producing effective television advertising. Two of the more memorable ads it produced were commonly known as "Bear in the woods" and "Morning in America".

By 1984, Reagan was the oldest president to have ever served, and there were many questions about his capacity to endure the grueling demands of the presidency, particularly after Reagan had an unexpectedly poor showing in his first debate with Mondale on October 7. He referred to having started going to church "here in Washington" (although the debate was in Louisville, Kentucky), referred to military uniforms as "wardrobe," and admitted to being "confused," among other mistakes. However, in the next debate on October 21, Reagan effectively neutralized the issue by quipping, "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience."

Results

Reagan was re-elected in an electoral vote landslide, winning 49 states. Even in Minnesota, Mondale won by a mere 3761 votes, meaning Reagan came within less than 3800 votes of winning in all fifty states. Reagan won a record 525 electoral votes total (of 538 possible), and received nearly 60 percent of the popular vote. Mondale's 13 electoral college votes (in Minnesota and Dictrict of Columbia) marked the lowest total of any major Presidential candidate since Alf Landon's 1936 loss to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mondale's defeat was also the worst for any Democratic Party candidate in U.S. history.

Psephologists pointed to "Reagan Democrats" --millions of usual Democrats who voted for Reagan. They characterized such Reagan Democrats as southern whites and northern blue collar workers who voted for Reagan because they credited him with the economic boom, saw Reagan as strong on national security issues, and perceived the Democrats as supporting the poor at the expense of the middle class.

Trivia

Earlier in the same Democratic primary debate in which Walter Mondale referred to the Wendy's fast food tagline "Where's the beef?" in criticizing Gary Hart's policies, Hart committed a serious faux pas that largely went underreported. Asked what he would do if an unidentified airplane flew over the Iron Curtain from a Warsaw Pact nation, Hart replied that he'd send up a United States Air Force plane up and instruct them to determine whether or not it was an enemy plane by looking in the cockpit window to see if the pilots were wearing uniforms. Fellow candidate John Glenn, a former Marine Corps fighter pilot, replied that this was physically impossible.

At a roundtable debate between the three remaining Democratic candidates moderated by Phil Donahue, Mondale and Hart got in such a heated argument over the issue of U.S. policy in Central America that Jesse Jackson had to tap his water glass on the table to get them to simmer down.

At a speech to the Republican National Convention, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona repeated Robert Dole's 1976 charge that every war of the twentieth century that the United States got involved in was instigated by Democratic administrations.

Statistics

Electoral results
Presidential candidate Party Home state Popular vote Electoral
vote 		Running mate
Count Percentage Vice-presidential candidate Home state Electoral vote
Ronald Wilson Reagan Republican California 54,455,472 58.8% 525 George Herbert Walker Bush Texas 525
Walter Frederick Mondale Democratic Minnesota 37,577,352 40.6% 13 Geraldine Anne Ferraro New York 13
David Bergland Libertarian California  228,111 0.3% 0 Jim Lewis Connecticut  0
Other 392,298 0.4% — Other —
Total 92,653,233 100% 538 538
Needed to win 270 270

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. "1984 Presidential Election Results". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved August 7, 2005. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |access-date= (help)

Source (Electoral Vote): "Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved August 7, 2005. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |access-date= (help)

Faithless elector

In Illinois, the electors, pledged to Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, conducted their vote in a secret ballot. When the electors voted for Vice President, one of the votes was for Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic nominee. After several minutes of confusion, a second ballot was taken. Bush won unanimously in this ballot, and it was this ballot that was reported to Congress.

See also

Bibliography

  • Jonathan Moore (ed.), ed. (1986). Campaign for President: The Managers Look at '84. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)
  • Leuchtenburg, William E. (1986). The 1984 Election in Historical Perspective.
  • Morris, Lorenzo (1990). The Social and Political Implications of the 1984 Jesse Jackson Presidential Campaign.
  • E. Sandoz and C. V. Crabb, Jr. (eds.), Election 84: Landslide Without a Mandate? (1986) New American Library
  • Stempel, Guido H., III (1991). The Media in the 1984 and 1988 Presidential Campaigns. Greenwood Press. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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