The POD is Reagan narrowly defeats President Ford in the New Hampshire Republican Primary, as he almost did in OTL, and goes on to just barely win the GOP nomination. In the general election he faces Jimmy Carter. But unlike in 1980, Reagan will be running to succeed a Republican President and Carter is a generally well liked fresh face in American politics. Nonetheless Reagan is a bit younger and just as much a persuasive speaker. Under these circumstances, who wins the election?
 
The POD is Reagan narrowly defeats President Ford in the New Hampshire Republican Primary, as he almost did in OTL, and goes on to just barely win the GOP nomination. In the general election he faces Jimmy Carter. But unlike in 1980, Reagan will be running to succeed a Republican President and Carter is a generally well liked fresh face in American politics. Nonetheless Reagan is a bit younger and just as much a persuasive speaker. Under these circumstances, who wins the election?
It could go either way. On the one hand, OTL's 1976 Presidential Election was relatively close, Reagan does not have baggage from the Nixon Administration tying him down, and Reagan is also more charismatic than Jimmy Carter. Richard Schweiker could also deliver Ohio and possibly Pennsylvania to him as well. On the other hand, he is to the right of Ford, whereas Carter is a moderate (some say Reagan was actually to the left of Carter and that's how he won disgruntled Ted Kennedy voters). Carter could argue that he is ideologically extreme and worse than Nixon/Ford.
 
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I wonder if Carter would be able to pick up disgruntled Ford voters.

In what ways?
Not sure if these count, but they attributed the idea that Carter was more religious than Reagan, there being times when Reagan might have raised taxes more than Carter (or at least comparing their tenures as governors of their respective states), and that Reagan grew government while Carter cut it.
 
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I could see Reagan winning if he plays his cards right, though how he handles 1976-1980 and how that could lead to a Dems 80s would be interested
 
Reagan was a little uncooked and undisciplined in 1976, so if he got the nomination I could see the election being not at all dissimiliar to OTL.


upload_2019-6-7_7-51-43.png


I mean, Ford already won California, so that's left unchanged.

Ford was from the Midwest and seems to have done better there, relative to the national mood than either Nixon or Reagan so even if Schweiker pulls over Pennsylvania and/or Ohio, then Michigan, Illinois, and Iowa are in danger of flipping to Carter. I still think it's a 50/50 shot and if Reagan wins, the next four years are hard. If he loses, Democrats are going to be on guard that someone as extreme as Reagan got so close and probably circle the wagons going into 1980 and don't implode so badly.

/Edit

I made a hypotethical map where Michigan, Illinois, and Iowa flip to Carter in exchange for Mississippi, Pennsylvania and Ohio going for Reagan and...Carter still wins. Red is Democratic, and Blue is Republican in this.

upload_2019-6-7_9-32-3.png
 
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Reagan was a little uncooked and undisciplined in 1976, so if he got the nomination I could see the election being not at all dissimiliar to OTL.


View attachment 464165

I mean, Ford already won California, so that's left unchanged.

Ford was from the Midwest and seems to have done better there, relative to the national mood than either Nixon or Reagan so even if Schweiker pulls over Pennsylvania and/or Ohio, then Michigan, Illinois, and Iowa are in danger of flipping to Carter. I still think it's a 50/50 shot and if Reagan wins, the next four years are hard. If he loses, Democrats are going to be on guard that someone as extreme as Reagan got so close and probably circle the wagons going into 1980 and don't implode so badly.

/Edit

I made a hypotethical map where Michigan, Illinois, and Iowa flip to Carter in exchange for Mississippi, Pennsylvania and Ohio going for Reagan and...Carter still wins. Red is Democratic, and Blue is Republican in this.

View attachment 464179

Yeah I could see this happening. Reagan would do better than Ford in the South, but Carter would still mostly sweep the region. Reagan would do worse than Ford in the North. So overall Reagan would do about as well as Ford in the electoral college, but still lose to Carter.

That said, a different Republican is probably nominated in 1980. Who might it be? Bush? Baker? Someone else entirely?
 
Ford was from the Midwest and seems to have done better there, relative to the national mood than either Nixon or Reagan so even if Schweiker pulls over Pennsylvania and/or Ohio, then Michigan, Illinois, and Iowa are in danger of flipping to Carter. I still think it's a 50/50 shot and if Reagan wins, the next four years are hard. If he loses, Democrats are going to be on guard that someone as extreme as Reagan got so close and probably circle the wagons going into 1980 and don't implode so badly.

I made a hypotethical map where Michigan, Illinois, and Iowa flip to Carter in exchange for Mississippi, Pennsylvania and Ohio going for Reagan and...Carter still wins. Red is Democratic, and Blue is Republican in this.
I imagine the election comes down to Illinois and New York, which were close in OTL. While Reagan was from Illinois, his long association with California would probably make him estranged there, especially given the Midwest boost Mondale gives to Carter. Schweiker would make New York close, but would it be enough to swing it to Reagan? Neither Reagan nor Carter and Mondale have any proximity near New York.
 
I made a hypothetical map where Michigan, Illinois, and Iowa flip to Carter in exchange for Mississippi, Pennsylvania and Ohio going for Reagan and...Carter still wins. Red is Democratic, and Blue is Republican in this.

The Republican nominee for Governor of Illinois is on a personal quest to gain three million votes. Massive coattails and gives Reagan the win 271-267. (Personally I think Reagan loses in 1976 against Carter.)

Schweiker would make New York close, but would it be enough to swing it to Reagan?

VP nominees generally only effect their home state in a positive manner (national effects are negative with poor choice or neutral with a good one in polling) albeit with some rare two state people like Biden in Pennsylvania; Reagan/Schweiker has a shot at Pennsylvania, especially when combined with Heinz’s unlimited cash in the Senate race freed up by Buckley vs Valeo. Oh and Governor Shapp is not terribly motivated to GOTV after his own state rejected him in the presidential primaries.
 
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The Republican nominee for Governor of Illinois is on a personal quest to gain three million votes. Massive coattails and gives Reagan the win 270-267. (Personally I think Reagan loses in 1976 against Carter.)



VP nominees generally only effect their home state in a positive manner (national effects are negative with poor choice or neutral with a good one in polling) albeit with some rare two state people like Biden in Pennsylvania; Reagan/Schweiker has a shot at Pennsylvania, especially when combined with Heinz’s unlimited cash in the Senate race freed up by Buckley vs Valeo. Oh and Governor Shapp is not terribly motivated to GOTV after his own state rejected him in the presidential primaries.

Fair. Though I think me giving Mississippi to Reagan was an erroneous choice, as he really didn't do much better than Ford did relative to the national popular vote. So even if Illinois goes the other way here, Carter wins on the strength of the (almost) solid South.
 
I could see Reagan losing by a LOT. People would remind about his opposition Medicare. Carter was unpopular in 1980 because of the times. I think stunts like promoting 'States Rights' at the location of notorious racist murders would have been clearer.

He would NOT be a plausable candidate in 1980
 
Reagan was a little uncooked and undisciplined in 1976, so if he got the nomination I could see the election being not at all dissimiliar to OTL.


View attachment 464165

I mean, Ford already won California, so that's left unchanged.

Ford was from the Midwest and seems to have done better there, relative to the national mood than either Nixon or Reagan so even if Schweiker pulls over Pennsylvania and/or Ohio, then Michigan, Illinois, and Iowa are in danger of flipping to Carter. I still think it's a 50/50 shot and if Reagan wins, the next four years are hard. If he loses, Democrats are going to be on guard that someone as extreme as Reagan got so close and probably circle the wagons going into 1980 and don't implode so badly.

/Edit

I made a hypotethical map where Michigan, Illinois, and Iowa flip to Carter in exchange for Mississippi, Pennsylvania and Ohio going for Reagan and...Carter still wins. Red is Democratic, and Blue is Republican in this.

View attachment 464179

Reagan would likely keep Illinois
 
Out of curiosity, I took my spreadsheet of the 1980 election (I have one for every election) and tweaked it to give Reagan a boost in the Mid-Atlantic and then set the popular vote to the IOTL 1976. This was the result:

upload_2019-6-9_20-56-48.png


Of course, if you go with the belief that the Gubernatorial election in Illinois is enough to pull Reagan across the finish line then you could see a scenario where Reagan is elected without the popular vote.

And if you think Reagan is going to do worse than Ford, a six point Reagan loss looks something like:

upload_2019-6-9_21-4-36.png
 
As in OTL, it would have been close, but IMO Carter would still have won. My reasons for believing this are:

(1) The GOP would still be bitterly divided--it would just be the other half of it that would be dissatisfied compared to OTL.

(2) Reagan's best states in the primaries were in the West and South. But while he would probably have done better in the popular vote in the West, he could not get any more electoral votes there than Ford did, for a simple reason--Ford swept the entire West in November (with the single exception of Hawaii, whose multiracial population would probably not be more favorable to Reagan than to Ford). Maybe Reagan defeats Carter in California by six points rather than Ford's two points. Maybe he carries Nevada by seven points instead of Ford's four points. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1976 But that means nothing in the Electoral College. Indeed, there is one western state that Ford very narrowly carried that Reagan might well have lost: Oregon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Oregon,_1976 Note that Ford had defeated Reagan in the Oregon primary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_primaries,_1976 Also, Oregon was one of the few states where Eugene McCarthy's vote made the difference, and I can easily see some McCarthy voters who thought there was little difference between Carter and Ford, but might hesitate to cast a third-party vote if that would help a more conservative Republican than Ford...

(3) What about the South? First of all, remember that Reagan did not win all the southern primaries: Ford defeated him in FL, TN, and KY. Second, Carter, as the first major-party presidential candidate from the Deep South since before the ACW, generally won decisive, not narrow victories over Ford in the South. He lost VA and OK (and I assume he would have done so against Reagan as well) but the only southern states he carried by less than 5.78 points were MS and TX. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1976 Note that if Reagan carries both TX and MS but loses OR, he will still fall short of 270 electoral votes.

But might Reagan have carried some southern states Carter won decisively in OTL? I doubt that. One piece of evidence of Carter's appeal in the South against Reagan is that even in 1980 when Carter had of course become a very unpopular president, he came very close to beating Reagan in southern state after southern state: Reagan (who of course lost Carter's home state of GA) won TN, AR, AL, MS, KY, and SC by 1.53 percent or less, and NC by 2.12 points. He did win LA by 5.45 points but by then Carter's energy policies were very unpopular there. (And of course he won FL by a landslide but the Mariel boatlift crisis and the unpopularity of Carter's Middle East policy among Jewish voters doomed Carter in that state in 1980.) Indeed, it is ironic that although the South was Anderson's weakest section in 1980, it is the section where he might have cost Carter a few states...

(4) In the Northeast and Midwest, I cannot see Reagan carrying any state that Ford didn't win, and indeed he might have lost some major states that Ford won narrowly in OTL: Illinois (where Ford easily defeated Reagan in the primary) and NJ. And just maybe even MI--yes, Carter lost it by over five points in OTL, but after all it was Ford's home state.

So could Reagan have defeated Carter in 1976? Sure--in a close race, anything is possible. Would he have done so? I doubt it.
 
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