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.