WI: John B. Anderson had a more Perot effect in 1980

Most of Anderson's original support came from Rockefeller Republicans who were more liberal than Reagan, but it bled away. Many prominent intellectuals, including the author and activist Gore Vidal and the editors of the liberal magazine The New Republic, also endorsed the Anderson campaign. He also had the support of many independents. Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury ran several strips sympathetic to the Anderson campaign.[4] According to the recently published journals of Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis voted for Anderson. The hope that Anderson would score when the Democrats split in their support of Ted Kennedy and President Jimmy Carter faded when Kennedy endorsed Carter and the Democrats held together. Anderson's choice of little-known Democrat Patrick Joseph Lucey, a former Governor of Wisconsin, as his running mate signaled that Anderson was unable to win over any prominent Democrat. His poll numbers kept falling, attributable in large part to a campaign pledge regarding the cornerstone of his proposed economic policy, which was to enact, if elected, a 50 cent per gallon gasoline tax, and in an era of high gas prices and fuel shortages, this did not resonate very well with voters. He stayed in the race allegedly because he would receive federal election subsidies only if he received 5% of the vote, and millions of unpaid debts had been accumulated.[5] In the end, he received 7% of the vote in the election with a total of about 6 million votes. He did not carry a single precinct in the country. Anderson's finish was still the best showing for a third party candidate since George Wallace 12% in 1968, and the sixth best for any such candidate in the 20th century (trailing Theodore Roosevelt's 27% in 1912, Robert LaFollete's 17% in 1924, Wallace, and Ross Perot's 18% and 8% in 1992 and 1996).

During the fall campaign, Reagan and Anderson engaged in a televised debate. Although he was invited, Carter did not participate in this debate. Carter and Reagan debated each other in the penultimate week of the presidential campaign; Anderson was not invited to participate.

So what are some possible POD'S to allow the Indepedent Rockefeller-Republican to gain enough of the popular vote in the 1980 election to hand the election back into Jimmy Carter's hands? He had about 25 percent favorabilty in the polls before the first debate...so maybe a Strong victory over Regean gives him more of a Boost? What Percentage of the votes would Anderson have to recieve for Carter to recieve the necessary electoral votes? Please discuss
 
Any comments on this thread, I find the idea rather interesting and it reallyh hasn't been talked up before on the board at all...Here is a good website on how theoretically how many votes Regean would have to loose to go 2 Carter for him to barely squeek by with the win.
 
The key problem is that Anderson picks up support from the usual Progressive belt (basically all the states bordering Canada—see Perot's '96 map for roughly how they shake out), along with some Rockefeller Republicans and the odd New Left liberal still left out there.

Sure Anderson tried to run as socially liberal / fiscally moderate-to-conservative but in practice he wound up left of Carter…*with obvious consequences (although Carter probably still would have lost without Anderson in the race, butterfly dependent).

He does not pick up anything in the South (nor, except for explicitly Southern third parties, do any third parties) and therefore Reagan can count on the South as a base while Carter—under a more successful Anderson scenario—is heavily threatened across the Mid-Atlantic, New England, and the Great Lakes.

The better Anderson does, the worse Carter does (in electoral math).

That's not to say Anderson voters were ex-Carter voters, but in practice (since Anderson had no support in the South) that's basically how it translated.
 
If Anderson's candidacy had gained traction he would have hurt Carter more than Reagen given his moderate to left of center views on a lot of issues. He would have appealed, I believe, to the "anyone but Carter, except Reagen" crowd. The GOP was extremely united in '80 and could smell, taste, see, hear and feel victory in November. It wasn't that way for the Democrats.
 
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