November 2, 1976: Jimmy Carter Is Elected President

Note the 2nd line of the headline:
Gotta get that local angle in.

November 2, 1976: Former Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia edges incumbent President Gerald Ford, to reclaim the White House for the Democratic Party.

Ford had been Vice President when President Richard Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. He was left with a recession he struggled to get under control, and the aftermath of the Watergate scandal that brought Nixon down. A month later, Ford pardoned Nixon for all crimes he committed, or may have committed, as President. That infuriated people who wanted to believe that Ford would be the honest man that Nixon wasn't.

Carter capitalized on that, telling voters, "I will never lie to you." It seemed to work: That statement, and the fact that he wasn't a "Washington insider" like so many other candidates for the Democratic nomination, made Carter stand out from the pack. At the Democratic Convention at Madison Square Garden, he took one of those insiders, Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota, as his Vice Presidential nominee. The Carter-Mondale ticket left New York with a 33-point lead in the polls.

It didn't help Ford that he had waffled on a federal bailout for New York City's government, which was close to bankruptcy. At first, he refused, leading to the famous Daily News headline: "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD." That scared New York State officials, so they stepped in and helped the City get its house a little closer to being in order. That convinced Ford that a smaller bailout was okay.

So now, Ford had ticked off people in the City who thought he didn't care, and he'd ticked off conservatives in the Republican Party who didn't want any bailout for the city they hated the most. (Yes, conservatives hate New York more than they hate Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago or Boston.) To try to win the conservatives back, Ford announced that his original choice for Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller, himself a former Governor of New York, would not be the Party's nominee for the office in 1976.

That wasn't good enough. Ronald Reagan, who had been an actor and then Governor of California, was the darling of the conservative movement, and he challenged Ford in the Republican Primaries, and got almost enough Delegates to dethrone him at the Republican Convention at the Kemper Arena in Kansas City. (The building is now named the Hy-Vee Arena.) Ford chose Senator Bob Dole of Kansas as his new running mate.

Twenty years later, himself nominated for President, Dole would seem too moderate for current Republicans. But in 1976, he was considered acceptable by the Reagan wing of the Party. Which shows just how far to the right the Party had shifted, even by 1996.

Before the Republican Convention, Carter led Ford in the polls by a whopping 33 points. But things began to turn Ford's way. He went on a railroad "whistle-stop tour" like Harry Truman in 1948, because his "Rose Garden strategy" of staying in the White House and "acting Presidential" wasn't working.

He shored up support in the South, the Midwest and the West, leading conservative New York Times columnist William Safire, who had been a speechwriter for Nixon, to coin the phrase "The Winning West," saying that it had become more important than "The Solid South." Dole brought some supporters back. The economy finally began to improve, after the 1st-ever combination of unemployment and inflation, a.k.a. "stagflation," in American history in 1973, '74 and '75.

And the Carter campaign made enough minor mis-steps that Carter's drop in the polls mirrored what might have happened if he'd had one major mis-step. Indeed, it could be argued that, despite winning the Presidency, Carter's political stock was never higher than during the 1976 Democratic Convention.

And while he was pro-civil rights, there was still a stigma: No Southerner had been elected President without first being the Vice President since Zachary Taylor in 1848. (Woodrow Wilson had been born in Virginia, but was a New Jersey-based politician. And he was the only Southern-born politician even nominated between 1848 and 1976.)

There were some zingers, but nothing really nasty. Ford questioned Carter's experience, and Carter responded by saying that, if experience were the deciding factor, "we would have kept Richard Nixon." There was a brief question about Ford's taxes, and the special counsel investigating decided there was not enough evidence to recommend charges. But before that decision, Carter addressed it very deftly: "I don't know what the facts are about Mr. Ford and his income tax. He does!" The implication being, "What's he hiding? Haven't we had enough of that?"

Ford attacked what he perceived to be Carter's weakness and indecisiveness: "He wanders, he wavers, he waffles, and he wiggles!" He also said, "There was a great, great President, many years ago, named Teddy Roosevelt, who said, 'Speak softly and carry a big stick.' Jimmy Carter speaks loudly, and carries a fly swatter!" One day, he delivered his stump speech 10 times. By the 9th time, he was so tired, it came out "fly swapper"; on the 10th try, "fly spotter." Still, each man seemed to be enjoying himself on the campaign trail.

But the debates doomed Ford. In one, he was asked about Soviet influence in Eastern Europe, and said, "There is no Soviet domination in Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford Administration." This statement was meant to suggest that he wouldn't let it happen. But most people knew that it had already happened, long before he took office, and it fed into the idea that Ford -- a graduate of the University of Michigan and Yale Law School, 2 of America's finest institutions of higher learning -- was dumb.

And in the Vice Presidential debate, Dole attacked the Democrats by saying that World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War were "all Democrat wars." This was completely stupid: The Vietnam War started under Dole's idol, fellow Kansan Dwight D. Eisenhower; and the others, once Democratic Presidents got America involved, Republicans in Congress wholeheartedly supported the war efforts. Indeed, with World War I, Republicans wanted it more than Democrats; and in World War II, Republicans didn't want to get involved at first, because they supported the fascist Axis against the Soviet Union.

On Election Day, November 2, the race was a virtual dead heat in the final poll. When the votes were tallied, it was definitive, but just barely. Carter got 40.8 million votes, Ford 39.1 million; Carter got 50.1 percent of the popular vote, Ford 48.0; Carter won only 23 States, to Ford's 27; but Carter's States added up to 297 Electoral Votes, Ford's to 240.

How close was it? Carter won Mississippi's 7 EVs by 15,000 votes, Wisconsin's 11 by 36,000, and Missouri's 12 by 61,000. Shift those 122,000 votes to Ford, and the EV count would have been Ford 271, Carter 267.

Carter won Pennsylvania by 123,000 votes. But shifting that 1 State, with 27 EVs, wouldn't have been enough to swing the election to Ford. Shifting New York would have been: Carter won it by 288,767 votes. Shift its 41 EVs, and it would have been Ford 281, Carter 256.

Ford's supporters were left to wonder. If only:

* Nixon had resigned a little sooner, giving Ford more time to turn things around.

* Ford hadn't pardoned Nixon, killing off some of the massive goodwill with which he began his Administration.

* Ford had given New York City the bailout at first, he could have won New York -- but he might not have won close States like Oregon, Maine, Virginia, and, most notably, Reagan's home State of California with its 45 EVs.

* Reagan had dropped out of the Primaries after losing Illinois, where he was born and raised, to Ford, allowing Ford to consolidate his intraparty support sooner.

* The economy had begun to improve, even a little bit sooner.

* Ford had come up with a better debate answer on Eastern Europe.

* Dole had come up with a better debate answer on foreign policy.

Had any one of those things happened, instead of what did happen, Ford could well have won, and continued as President all the way until January 20, 1981.

Already having big majorities in both houses of Congress, there wasn't much for the Democratic Party to gain there: They added just 1 seat in the House, giving them 292 seats; and 1 in the Senate, giving them 61. Neither major party has had that many since.

Among the new Senators elected were Democrats Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio (who beat Bob Taft Jr., son of a Senate Majority Leader and grandson of a President), Daniel Patrick "Pat" Moynihan of New York; and Republicans Richard Lugar of Indiana, Orrin Hatch of Utah, John Heinz of Pennsylvania (of the Pittsburgh condiment-making family), and Harrison Schmitt of New Mexico (who walked on the Moon on the Apollo 17 mission).

Maybe Ford was better off for having lost: Carter was left with the energy crisis, a hard situation in Iran, and a new round of recession and inflation. If Ford had what amounted to a 2nd term, he might have struggled just as much (if not with exactly the same attempted solutions), and he might now be considered one of the country's worst Presidents, if a well-meaning one.

Time magazine named Carter their Man of the Yar for 1976. He started his Inaugural Address by thanking "my predecessor, for all he has done to heal our land." That healed some of the bitterness that had come up between them during the campaign, and the two men remained on friendly terms for the rest of Ford's life, which came to a close in 2006, at the age of 93. At the time, Ford was the longest-lived President in American history. At 98, and still alive at this writing, Carter now holds that title. (UPDATE: Carter became the 1st President to live to reach a 100th birthday, dying shortly after it.)

The 1976 campaign remains the last one to date that was relatively civil. In 1980, Reagan and the Republicans ran a campaign that terribly mocked Carter, and it worked. As time has gone by, Presidential elections gotten nastier and nastier. The zingers that Ford and Carter traded in the Bicentennial Year now seem rather quaint by comparison.

Also on Election Day 1976, New Jersey voters approved casino gambling in Atlantic City. This would one day have repercussions in another Presidential race, as Donald Trump ran in 2016 despite building 3 casino-hotels in A.C., and having them all go bankrupt. Some businessman he turned out to be.

There's a Jimmy Carter Presidential Parkway and a Jimmy Carter Boulevard in his home State of Georgia. A statue of him stands outside the State Capitol in Atlanta. The city is also home to his Presidential Library, and the Carter Center, an institute dedicated to peaceful change all over the world. Given his U.S. Navy experience, it was appropriate that a nuclear-powered submarine was named the USS Jimmy Carter, SSN-23, in service since 2004.

While he was born and raised in Los Angeles, actor Richard Paul had become known for his impressions, and his impression of Carter led to him being cast as Mayor Teddy Burnside in the sitcom Carter Country, which aired on ABC in the 1977-78 and 1978-79 TV seasons. In a retroactive irony -- Bill Clinton was first elected Governor of Arkansas in 1978 -- the name of the fictional Georgia town on the show was Clinton Corners. The TV show The Dukes of Hazzard, based in a fictional Georgia County, also debuted during Carter's Presidency. While it was filmed in 1976, the Georgia-based movie Smokey & the Bandit premiered in 1977.

Statue, State House, Atlanta, Georgia

Carter remains the only President born in, or representing, Georgia.

Carter has been played by Dan Aykroyd on Saturday Night Live, Ed Beheler in Sextette in 1978 and Hot Shots! Part Deux in 1993, and Brad Maynard in the pilot of the 1st live-action TV version of the superhero comedy The Tick in 2001. (A Soviet robot had been programmed specifically to kill Carter, not whoever was currently President, and was revived in what was then the present day.)

UPDATE: Carter became the 1st President to live to be 100 years old, on October 1, 2024. He had said he wanted to live long enough to vote for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump in the election on November 5. He did. He died on December 29.

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November 2, 1976, like all Election Days in modern American history, was a Tuesday. The baseball season was over. The football season was in midweek. There were 4 games played in the NBA that day:

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 125-113 at the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena. Bod Dandridge scored 37 points.

* The New Orleans Jazz beat the Boston Celtics, 115-97 at the Superdome in New Orleans. "Pistol Pete" Maravich scored 43 for the Jazz, who moved to Utah in 1979.

* The Golden State Warriors beat the Detroit Pistons, 111-98 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Atlanta Hawks, 129-116 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum.

There were 2 games in the NHL:

* The New York Islanders beat the Colorado Rockies, 5-1 at the McNichols Arena in Denver. This was the Rockies' 1st season in Denver. They would play 6 there, making the Playoffs only in 1978, before moving to become the New Jersey Devils in 1982.

* And the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Los Angeles Kings, 7-1 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

In the World Hockey Association:

* The Phoenix Roadrunners beat the Quebec Nordiques, 5-3 at the Colisee de Quebec.

* The San Diego Mariners beat the Birmingham Bulls, 4-3 at the Jefferson County Civic Center in Birmingham, Alabama, now known as the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex.

* The Houston Aeros beat the Winnipeg Jets, 3-1 at the Winnipeg Arena.

* And the Calgary Cowboys beat the Minnesota Fighting Saints, 4-3 at the Stampede Corral in Calgary.