alternatehistory.com

Election Night '84 - 8:12
8:12 PM

Over in the corner where the numbers boys are watching, the results are coming in…

“Wow, that was quick.”
“What? Alabama?”
“Alabama AND Mississippi.”
“Are we really doing this? He’s got like 36% of the vote right now in Alabama. And Mississippi-”
“Look, CBS is calling it right now.”
“It’s 5% of precincts reporting.”
“There goes ABC!”
“Okay, call it.”​



...And I’m just being told that we have two more states to call. A bit of a surprise here. We are calling both Alabama and Mississippi for Senator Buckley. We thought it might be an interesting night for him, but I don’t think anyone expected him to make it onto the board quite so soon. But we’re being told that the early projections are extremely strong for the Senator.



Anderson: 3
Buckley: 16
Lamm: 18

That’s something of a shocking result, and the fact that they’re able to call it so early in the night is really telling that the old dynamics are just out the window once and for all. We had signs in ‘82, but a presidential election is in many ways a completely different animal…
Top