1980 presidential election deadlocked?

[True Grit]

I was thinking about American political PODs, and it occured to me that while in most elections where there have been strong third-party candidacies (namely 1948, 68, and 92) there have been lots of discussions about what would happen if the election was sent to congress, the same isn't true about 1980. Granted, part of this is because Anderson didn't do that well IOTL, not really coming close to winning a state. But, given pre-election polling a few months earlier, it's not hard to imagine a scenario where Anderson wins a state and a close Reagan-Carter contest means the election is sent to congress.

If this did indeed happen, what is the most likely scenario? Given the Democratic control, I'd imagine Carter is favoured, but I wouldn't rule out Anderson; Carter was unpopular with many in his party after a poor term and bitter primary, while Reagan was mistrusted by moderate Republicans.

 

[Emperor Julian]

So, in OTL, after the 1980 election, the Democrats controlled 27 house delegations, the Republicans controlled 15, and 8 were deadlocked. So the Democrats have a straight up majority already. Now, since Reagan will have to have done much worse in this scenario, it's likely some close races will have flipped. Iowa, Minnesota, South Carolina, and West Virginia look likely to have Democratic majorities they didn't have in OTL, and lots of states will have stronger Democratic majorities. Unless Carter has been somehow driven down into a distant third place, I'm having a very hard time seeing enough Democrats defect to prevent him from being elected President. I could see the Senate not flipping as well, giving Mondale a second term (assuming he's in second place), but it's possible that a Carter/Bush presidency could be the result of this.

And if John Hinckley Jr. assassinates Carter and gives everyone a president of a different party, imagine the conspiracy theories which would result!

 

[Indicus]

Here's a possible electoral map (after playing out with the numbers in Excel):

Jimmy Carter/Walter Mondale (Democratic): 266 EV; 35.41%
Ronald Reagan/George H.W. Bush (Republican): 255 EV; 36.35%
John B. Anderson/Patrick Lucey (Independent): 17 EV; 27.61%

Also to note is that Carter and Anderson are tied in Massachusetts.

I think it is impossible for Anderson to poll that high; not even at his peak did he do that well. But assuming he does, without Reagan's coattails, neither chamber will flip, so both Carter and Mondale are confirmed by the House and Senate, respectively.

 

[Johnrankins]

Since Carter was completely blown out it is hard to imagine.

 

[David T]

Anderson's strong showings in the polls in June (in the 20's) were IMO always illusory--they were before the two major party conventions, which shored up partisans' support of their parties' candidates (especially on the Republican side). But let us assume that Anderson somehow remains strong, and even (almost ASB territory) carries every state where he got over twelve percent of the vote in OTL: MA (his strongest state, but even here he only got 15 percent), VT, RI, NH, and CT. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1980 That's only thirty-two electoral votes, hardly likely to throw the race into the House, unless the Carter-Reagan race was much closer. But since Anderson apparently got more votes from Carter supporters than from Reagan supporters (though not as overwhelmingly as is sometimes thought--according to Newsweek, "had Anderson not run, Carter would have picked up barely half (49 per cent) of his vote; 37 per cent of Anderson voters said they would have backed Reagan." http://www.salon.com/2011/04/04/third_party_myth_easterbrook/ ) a stronger Anderson showing would if anything probably make Reagan's victory over Carter even more lopsided than in OTL.

 

[maxs]

Here's a possible electoral map (after playing out with the numbers in Excel):

Jimmy Carter/Walter Mondale (Democratic): 266 EV; 35.41%
Ronald Reagan/George H.W. Bush (Republican): 255 EV; 36.35%
John B. Anderson/Patrick Lucey (Independent): 17 EV; 27.61%

Also to note is that Carter and Anderson are tied in Massachusetts.

I think it is impossible for Anderson to poll that high; not even at his peak did he do that well. But assuming he does, without Reagan's coattails, neither chamber will flip, so both Carter and Mondale are confirmed by the House and Senate, respectively.

I would think at least two interesting states this time, would have been IL and WI, Anderson and Lucey's home states. Yes, MA was interesting, and was hair close OTL, iirc. But a bigger Electoral bang would be in the midwest. Carter was also going over like a lead balloon in Rust Belt states-to-be, MI, PA and OH, as well as IL and WI already noted.
So, if we hash Electoral numbers that way, Anderson as a more effective 3rd party could become strong enough to deny quite a number of E votes to Reagan, instead of just to Carter. With that many Midwest votes in play, and MA possibly also going to Anderson/Lucey, you'd have enough to work with, I would think. But I haven't gone in recently and crunched the numbers, though years ago, I did, as others up here probably did, with an eye to how much damage Anderson/Lucey did to Carter. One other thing, was that the West coast was already close OTL. And, recall, too, that in '80, a number of 3rd parties had big turnouts aside from Anderson.

 

[David T]

I would think at least two interesting states this time, would have been IL and WI, Anderson and Lucey's home states.

Anderson did quite poorly in IL, considering it was his home state; he got only 7.3% of the vote there, barely above his national average. He did even worse in Wisconsin: 7.07%.

The only states where Anderson got over 12% of the vote were all in New England (MA, VT, RI, NH, CT) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1980 Even having Anderson carry any of *them* is pretty implausible--to have him carry states where he got 7 percent in OTL is *totally* implausible. The Midwest states simply did not have as many liberal-independent voters as New England. In the Midwest, if you wanted to get rid of Jummy Carter, the obvious way to do it was to vote for Reagan (especially since he had reassured moderate Republicans by choosing Bush).