Overview

The United States presidential election of 1984 was held on Tuesday, November 6. The contest was between the incumbent President Ronald Reagan, the Republican candidate, and former Vice President Walter Mondale, the Democratic candidate. Reagan carried 49 of the 50 states, becoming only the second presidential candidate to do so after Richard Nixon's victory in the 1972 presidential election. Reagan's success was aided by a strong economic recovery from the deep recession of 1981–1982. Mondale's only electoral votes came from the District of Columbia and his home state of Minnesota, which he won by a mere 3,761 votes. Reagan's 525 electoral votes (out of 538) is the highest total ever received by a presidential candidate. Mondale's 13 electoral votes is also the second-fewest ever received by a second-place candidate, second only to Alf Landon's eight in 1936. In the national popular vote, Reagan received 58.8% to Mondale's 40.6%. No candidate since then has managed to equal or surpass Reagan's 1984 electoral result. In addition, no post-1984 Republican candidate has managed to match or better Reagan's electoral performance in the American Northeast, known to be a very Democratic region in modern times.

The Primaries

Only three Democratic candidates won any state primaries: Mondale, Gary Hart, and Jesse Jackson. Initially, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, after a failed bid to win the 1980 Democratic nomination for president, was considered the de facto front-runner of the 1984 primary. However, after Kennedy ultimately declined to run, former Vice-President Mondale was then viewed as the favorite to win the Democratic nomination. Mondale had the largest number of party leaders supporting him, and he had raised more money than any other candidate. However, both Jackson and Hart emerged as surprising opponents. Mondale gradually pulled away from Hart in the delegate count, and at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco on July 16, Mondale received the overwhelming support of the un-elected super delegates from the party establishment to win the nomination.

The Campaign

Mondale ran a liberal campaign, supporting a nuclear freeze and the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). He spoke against what he considered to be unfairness in Reagan's economic policies and the need to reduce federal budget deficits. Reagan was the oldest president to have ever served (he was 73 years old by this point), and there were many questions about his capacity to endure the grueling demands of the presidency, particularly after Reagan had a poor showing in his first debate with Mondale on October 7. He referred to having started going to church "here in Washington", although the debate was in Louisville, Kentucky; referred to military uniforms as "wardrobe"; and admitted to being "confused," among other mistakes. However, in the next debate on October 21, Reagan effectively neutralized the issue by quipping, "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience.

Results

Reagan was re-elected in the November 6 election in an electoral and popular vote landslide. Analysts of the election attributed the Republican victory to "Reagan Democrats", millions of Democrats who voted for Reagan, as in 1980. They characterized such Reagan Democrats as southern whites and northern blue collar workers who voted for Reagan because they credited him with the economic recovery, saw Reagan as strong on national security issues, and perceived the Democrats as supporting the poor and minorities at the expense of the middle class. The Democratic National Committee commissioned a study after the election that came to these conclusions; however, it suppressed the "explosive report" out of fear that it would offend its key voters.

Electoral College 1984

1984 presidential electoral votes by state. Reagan (red) won every state except for Mondale's home state of Minnesota and Washington, D.C. (blue).