I'm not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but could the downballot effects of Carter doing much better lead to Barry Goldwater narrowly getting defeated in the Arizona senate race? Considering how close Goldwater's win was in a great year for Republicans OTL
Jimmy Two: America in Carter's Second Term
- Thread starter Vidal
- Start date
I think so, yes. Also consider that without an early Carter concession, some of the Democrats in the west may survive, as Democrats don’t leave the polls early (Frank Church).
Last edited:
This is the list of Close 1980 Senate Races:
Reckon Church, Talmadge, and Nelson get back in to office.
| State | Party of winner | Margin |
|---|---|---|
| North Carolina | Republican (flip) | 0.58% |
| Idaho | Republican (flip) | 0.97% |
| Arizona | Republican | 1.08% |
| Vermont | Democratic | 1.32% |
| New York | Republican | 1.34% [c] |
| Colorado | Democratic | 1.64% |
| Georgia | Republican (flip) | 1.74% |
| Wisconsin | Republican (flip) | 1.85% |
| Pennsylvania | Republican | 2.44% |
| Alabama | Republican (flip) | 3.10% |
| Florida | Republican (flip) | 3.32% |
| New Hampshire | Republican (flip) | 4.29% |
| Missouri | Democratic | 4.33% |
| Indiana | Republican (flip) | 7.58% |
| Alaska | Republican (flip) | 7.75% |
| Iowa | Republican (flip) | 7.95% |
| Oregon | Republican | 8.10% |
| Washington | Republican (flip) | 8.35% |
| Oklahoma | Republican | 9.92% |
Reckon Church, Talmadge, and Nelson get back in to office.
Morgan survives in NC too, I think. As well, Flaherty may beat Spector in PA, Holtzman could beat D'Amato in NY, and Folsom beats Denton in AL. If I did the counting correctly, and assuming a 2% uniform swing of R to D from OTL (questionable), The R+12 wave seen in OTL becomes just R+3.
It would be thematically appropritate to have Goldwater lose re-election.
Deleted member 145219
I think someone, maybe James Baker, said that, "If we knew we were going to win the Senate, we would have nominated actual people." I didn't realize how many close Senate races there were in 1980. I knew there were several in 1974 and 1986, which is the same class. So it looks like the Democrats in ATL could hold North Carolina, Idaho, Alabama, Florida, New Hampshire, Georgia, and Wisconsin. And flip Pennsylvania, and Arizona. So that's nine more Democratic Senators in 1981/1982 potentially.
I'm thinking that Reagan/Kemp is really walking into a thumping in the general election cycle. Carter needs to have a really strong Convention and Debate Performance. Pulling off an October Surprise in getting the Hostages released would be the cherry on top. And political payback for Nixon's shenanigans in 1968.
LMAO I question the Mondale Death Star but holy crap Roger Stone peaking out right there just takes the cake.Does this make sense? nope. Am I going to post it anyways? yep.
Maybe butterflies cause Talmadge to lose the Democratic primary to Zell Miller first. It was held on August 26.
Also, the results depend on how big Carter's win is, how well down-ballot Democrats do in general, and whether @Vidal will allow all local circumstances to remain the same or if he will move some races towards the Democrats with the hope of helping Jimmy during his second term, or some towards the Republicans for fairness purposes.
Thank you everyone for the kind words. I've been quite busy (summer usually is for me as I like to take advantage of my weekends and head to the beach), so I haven't really had time to sit down and read through all of these, but the community of this timeline is what makes it so fun -- which is why I couldn't keep it bottled up in the Villa for too long. So, thanks to everyone who is sharing comments here. I wanted to respond to a smattering of them:
I agree, and I think it's fun that so many of us on these boards have picked up the mantle and done the work of showing the "What-ifs" behind these ill-fated candidacies.
Thank you! That is high praise. I think my only comment about the speech is just to emphasize that Carter really did receive a bump from it IOTL. Overnight polling was favorable for him. People appreciated his honesty and while EMK saw it as preachy and beneath the office of the presidency (which inspired his decision to primary Carter), most Americans were relieved to have a president willing to level them. Then, he looked like a bumbling mess when he fired his whole cabinet afterwards.
One of the harder things to trace here, but I hope to do so over time, is the real cultural change in Americans' attitudes toward their government. That is probably the biggest effect of a Carter presidency/no Reagan. The idea that the government is not the solution was not yet in vogue so firmly, even if it was gaining steam pre-Reagan. So a president who can restore that trust in Watergate instead of validating the distrust has big ramifications for our electorate.
Sure, I can stick in a paragraph during the '92 election about a poll that says Americans trust their government, but I'd really love to be able to show it in later chapters through the writing and scenarios.
I knew of the rumors, but it was the recent publication of Secret City that made me take a second look. It was included in the story already, but the next few chapters underwent a bit of a revision based on just how prevalent the story was. You can read this POLITICO excerpt for a general sense of where things may be headed in the general election campaign: https://www.politico.com/news/magaz...a-conspiracy-reagan-kirchick-excerpt-00035193
Connally is just a hell of a lot of fun to write, to be honest, and his performing better enough is really all I needed to make Reagan weaker heading into the general election. As I've said, part of the fun of this is Carter holding the sword when Reagan goes down.
Wasn't Reagan's vice presidential selection process wild? I mean, it hems pretty closely to how it did IOTL with the exception that because Bush took the fight to the Convention, they refuse to seriously consider him for the bottom spot on the ticket. The conversation in which someone goes "Well, I have Rumsfeld's number..." is pretty much OTL. Plenty of dystopian TLs on here have toyed with the idea that Reagan picks Rumsfeld and then Hinckley gets better aim.
Connally's prevalence and Bush's performance keep the Anderson voters behind Bush to the extent he doesn't really take off in the primaries and so there's no independent candidacy to build in the aftermath.
Avoiding a word with a particular connotation, I would definitely say they are passionate -- and that's one influence of Perlstein's writing here. To trace it all back to Goldwater, I knew that and I think most lay observers understand. What I loved about Before The Storm is how he goes back further to the Taft nomination fight, which I'm not saying is especially brilliant or unique to him but rather it's just where I first read about it. There really was a concerted feeling that they'd been robbed before -- and they weren't going to let it happen again.
The whole fight is sort of meant to resemble the 1968 Convention, where Rockefeller and Reagan had an unholy alliance meant to take down Nixon, but even if it had succeeded in denying Nixon the nomination on the first ballot, the Reagan people feared a Rocky nomination too much and the Rocky people hated Reagan too much to allow anyone else to emerge as a compromise candidate. By 1980, ITTL, Reagan is the standard bearer and the compromise choice.
It really is one of the most bizarre parts of our political history in modern times. I recommend Craig Shirley's book Rendezvous with Destiny, which (when combined with Reaganland) provides the best account. Shirley loves Reagan and sometimes the prose is a bit too glowing but when you read through that, there's a lot of access to the inside account which proves useful.
You're too kind. I think there's a big difference in style and motive between our efforts -- the ASB elements of time travel just naturally invoke a different feel. One is not better than the other, and I'm glad to have your presence in this thread, and I've enjoyed our private conversations.
This is really kind, thank you! I think Greenfield's stature gets him into a publishing room that I can't, but who knows...
I don't think I have a full Ford second term TL in me -- it's too good and too juicy to take up in earnest after this effort -- but I would love to write a narrow short TL focused on the Panama Canal Treaty fight in a Ford Wins 76 universe as I think that would prove one of the more interesting episodes and it's a fight that really intrigues me as an "alternate historian."
I agree with this (but also don't totally agree). I think the careful person around these parts can craft a convincing tale in which a typically-poisoned chalice election doesn't end up being one, but I also think if you could objectively run the scenario 100 times, some elections would pretty much always end up that way. I would say something like 2004 was probably more of a poisoned chalice than '76 in that Carter really aggravated his own party and gave up some areas that could have helped in a reelection for various reasons.
I think he could have been, too, and probably in a "kinder, gentler" way...
Thank you; this is very kind!
There will definitely be down ballot repercussions. As mentioned, Carter will obviously not be conceding early ITTL, and as @THE OBSERVER points out, there were a large number of incredibly close Senate races in 1980.
I agree, and I think it's fun that so many of us on these boards have picked up the mantle and done the work of showing the "What-ifs" behind these ill-fated candidacies.
Thank you! That is high praise. I think my only comment about the speech is just to emphasize that Carter really did receive a bump from it IOTL. Overnight polling was favorable for him. People appreciated his honesty and while EMK saw it as preachy and beneath the office of the presidency (which inspired his decision to primary Carter), most Americans were relieved to have a president willing to level them. Then, he looked like a bumbling mess when he fired his whole cabinet afterwards.
One of the harder things to trace here, but I hope to do so over time, is the real cultural change in Americans' attitudes toward their government. That is probably the biggest effect of a Carter presidency/no Reagan. The idea that the government is not the solution was not yet in vogue so firmly, even if it was gaining steam pre-Reagan. So a president who can restore that trust in Watergate instead of validating the distrust has big ramifications for our electorate.
Sure, I can stick in a paragraph during the '92 election about a poll that says Americans trust their government, but I'd really love to be able to show it in later chapters through the writing and scenarios.
I knew of the rumors, but it was the recent publication of Secret City that made me take a second look. It was included in the story already, but the next few chapters underwent a bit of a revision based on just how prevalent the story was. You can read this POLITICO excerpt for a general sense of where things may be headed in the general election campaign: https://www.politico.com/news/magaz...a-conspiracy-reagan-kirchick-excerpt-00035193
Connally is just a hell of a lot of fun to write, to be honest, and his performing better enough is really all I needed to make Reagan weaker heading into the general election. As I've said, part of the fun of this is Carter holding the sword when Reagan goes down.
Wasn't Reagan's vice presidential selection process wild? I mean, it hems pretty closely to how it did IOTL with the exception that because Bush took the fight to the Convention, they refuse to seriously consider him for the bottom spot on the ticket. The conversation in which someone goes "Well, I have Rumsfeld's number..." is pretty much OTL. Plenty of dystopian TLs on here have toyed with the idea that Reagan picks Rumsfeld and then Hinckley gets better aim.
Connally's prevalence and Bush's performance keep the Anderson voters behind Bush to the extent he doesn't really take off in the primaries and so there's no independent candidacy to build in the aftermath.
Avoiding a word with a particular connotation, I would definitely say they are passionate -- and that's one influence of Perlstein's writing here. To trace it all back to Goldwater, I knew that and I think most lay observers understand. What I loved about Before The Storm is how he goes back further to the Taft nomination fight, which I'm not saying is especially brilliant or unique to him but rather it's just where I first read about it. There really was a concerted feeling that they'd been robbed before -- and they weren't going to let it happen again.
The whole fight is sort of meant to resemble the 1968 Convention, where Rockefeller and Reagan had an unholy alliance meant to take down Nixon, but even if it had succeeded in denying Nixon the nomination on the first ballot, the Reagan people feared a Rocky nomination too much and the Rocky people hated Reagan too much to allow anyone else to emerge as a compromise candidate. By 1980, ITTL, Reagan is the standard bearer and the compromise choice.
It really is one of the most bizarre parts of our political history in modern times. I recommend Craig Shirley's book Rendezvous with Destiny, which (when combined with Reaganland) provides the best account. Shirley loves Reagan and sometimes the prose is a bit too glowing but when you read through that, there's a lot of access to the inside account which proves useful.
You're too kind. I think there's a big difference in style and motive between our efforts -- the ASB elements of time travel just naturally invoke a different feel. One is not better than the other, and I'm glad to have your presence in this thread, and I've enjoyed our private conversations.
This is really kind, thank you! I think Greenfield's stature gets him into a publishing room that I can't, but who knows...
I don't think I have a full Ford second term TL in me -- it's too good and too juicy to take up in earnest after this effort -- but I would love to write a narrow short TL focused on the Panama Canal Treaty fight in a Ford Wins 76 universe as I think that would prove one of the more interesting episodes and it's a fight that really intrigues me as an "alternate historian."
I agree with this (but also don't totally agree). I think the careful person around these parts can craft a convincing tale in which a typically-poisoned chalice election doesn't end up being one, but I also think if you could objectively run the scenario 100 times, some elections would pretty much always end up that way. I would say something like 2004 was probably more of a poisoned chalice than '76 in that Carter really aggravated his own party and gave up some areas that could have helped in a reelection for various reasons.
I think he could have been, too, and probably in a "kinder, gentler" way...
Thank you; this is very kind!
There will definitely be down ballot repercussions. As mentioned, Carter will obviously not be conceding early ITTL, and as @THE OBSERVER points out, there were a large number of incredibly close Senate races in 1980.
Roger looks like Saul Goodman what the hell. Better Phone Stone ass haircut
I wonder if he was still swinging during this time while he was with his 1st wife....
Hinckley had been following Carter to campaign events prior to his Nashville arrest. Maybe he shoots Carter and gives him a sympathy bump in the polls?
That's what Vidal hinted at in an earlier post, when he mentioned Hinckley didn't target Carter because he thought he'd lose, but left to wonder if that changed. I'd bet on that for an October surprise.
Could Carter have been persuaded to support Abel Muzorewa? He being a Bishop, it always surprised me, Mugabe pulled the will over Carter's eyes.
I wonder, since Carter will win a second term in this timeline, I wonder where the Democratic Party will go next with Carter's legacy not being so dismal. Carter wasn't a liberal like Ted Kennedy, but he wasn't as much of a centrist as Bill Clinton would later be. Perhaps butterflying Reagan also butterflies the New Democrats?
If the Democrats go liberal or are at least perceived as going liberal in 1984 with Mondale and 1988 with Dukakis for instance and fail that could cement the party's approach as pro-southern moderate even more so that in OTL with two victories to point to. Gore '92, a moderate southerner with a social conservative streak (see Gore '88)? Assuming his election isn't butterflied.
Inasmuch as a second Carter term is an inherently enticing and fascinating prospect, I think I'm especially interested to see how he'll handle the AIDS epidemic.