Presidential Election of 1980

The 1980 Presidential Primary Campaign

In early 1979, Carter found himself at risk of having his re-election chances foiled by a primary challenger. The strongest challenge came from Massachusetts Senator [Page 650]Edward “Ted” Kennedy, although others such as William Proxmire and Jerry Brown, also posed a threat. Kennedy hoped that Carter's negative image and poor first-term performance would allow him to surpass the incumbent as the Democratic Party's choice for presidential candidate. In fact, early public survey polls indicated that Democrats favored Kennedy over Carter by nearly a two-thirds margin. Fortunately for Carter, however, Ted Kennedy was unable to make a strong case for his candidacy. During a number of key interviews with the media at the outset of his campaign, Kennedy struggled to provide a clear explanation of his policy views and his motivations for entering the campaign.

Not long afterward, a sudden crisis emerged when Iran took 63 Americans hostage in Tehran. In response, the American public immediately rallied behind Carter to display their patriotism and to show support for the hostages. However, Carter's support would later diminish after a botched rescue attempt, Operation Eagle Claw, on April 24, 1980, left eight servicemen dead and forced Carter to abort the mission.

After Kennedy's missteps and the rally effect in the wake of the hostage crisis, Carter regained support in the polls and eventually beat Kennedy in the key primary battles in Iowa and New Hampshire. Carter then followed with victories in nearly all the remaining primary elections, save for Kennedy's expected victory in the Massachusetts primary and a couple of surprise victories in New York and Connecticut. Thereafter, at the 1980 Democratic convention, delegates once again nominated Carter as the party's candidate for president.

The primary battle for the Republican Party nomination produced a much wider array of aspiring candidates, including Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, John Anderson, Howard Baker, John Connally, Phil Crane, and Bob Dole. Having nearly defeated Gerald Ford in the 1976 Republican primary, Ronald Reagan began as a hands-down favorite for the candidacy, until George H.W. Bush pulled a surprising victory over Reagan in the opening Iowa primary election. Reagan responded with a strong showing at a debate sponsored by the Nashua Telegraph. Reagan went on to receive the nomination of the Republican Party by an overwhelming margin.

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