1976 United States presidential election

For related races, see 1976 United States elections.

1976 United States presidential election

November 2, 1976
All 538 electoral votes of the Electoral College 270 electoral votes needed to win
Turnout	53.5% 1.7 pp
Nominee Jimmy Carter Gerald Ford Party Democratic Republican Home state Georgia Michigan Running mate Walter Mondale Bob Dole Electoral vote 297 240 States carried 23 + DC 27 Popular vote 40,831,881 39,148,634 Percentage 50.1% 48.0%
Template:1976 United States presidential election imagemap Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Carter/Mondale, red denotes those won by Ford/Dole. Pink is the electoral vote for Ronald Reagan by a Washington faithless elector. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
President before election Gerald Ford Republican Elected President Jimmy Carter Democratic

The 1976 United States presidential election was the 48th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 2, 1976. Democrat Jimmy Carter of Georgia defeated incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford from Michigan. Carter's win represented the lone Democratic victory in a presidential election held between 1968 and 1992.

President Richard Nixon had won the 1972 election with Spiro Agnew as his running mate, but in 1973 Agnew resigned and Ford was appointed as vice president via the 25th Amendment. When Nixon resigned in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal, Ford ascended to the presidency, becoming the only president to have never been elected to national office. He faced a strong challenge from conservative former governor and future president Ronald Reagan of California in the Republican primaries, but Ford narrowly prevailed at the convention. Carter was little-known at the start of the Democratic primaries, but the former governor of Georgia emerged as the front-runner after his victories in the first set of primaries. Campaigning as a political moderate and Washington outsider, Carter defeated opponents such as Jerry Brown and Mo Udall to clinch the Democratic nomination.

Ford pursued a "Rose Garden strategy" in which he sought to portray himself as an experienced leader focused on fulfilling his role as chief executive. Carter emphasized his status as a reformer who was "untainted" by Washington. Saddled with a poor economy, the fall of South Vietnam and his unpopular pardon of Nixon, Ford trailed by a wide margin in polls taken after Carter's formal nomination in July 1976. Ford's polling rebounded after a strong performance in the first presidential debate, and the race was close on election day.

Carter won a majority of the popular and electoral vote. He carried nearly every state in the South while Ford dominated the Western states. Carter remains the only Democratic candidate since 1964 to win a majority of the Southern states. Ford won 27 states, the most states ever carried by a losing candidate. Both of the major party vice presidential nominees, Walter Mondale in 1984 and Bob Dole in 1996, would later win their respective party's presidential nominations, but lose in the general election.

Nominations

Democratic Party

Main articles: Democratic Party presidential primaries, 1976 and 1976 Democratic National Convention

Democratic candidates

• Jimmy Carter, former governor of Georgia
• Morris Udall, U.S. Representative from Arizona
• Jerry Brown, Governor of California
• George Wallace, Governor of Alabama
• Ellen McCormack, housewife from New York
• Frank Church, U.S. Senator from Idaho
• Henry M. Jackson, U.S. Senator from Washington
• Fred R. Harris, former U.S. Senator from Oklahoma
• Robert Byrd, U.S. Senator from West Virginia
• Milton Shapp, Governor of Pennsylvania
• Sargent Shriver, former U.S. Ambassador to France, from Maryland
• Birch Bayh, U.S. Senator from Indiana
• Lloyd Bentsen, U.S. Senator from Texas
• Terry Sanford, former governor of North Carolina
• Walter Fauntroy, U.S. Delegate from Washington, D.C.

Democratic Party Ticket, 1976
Jimmy Carter	Walter Mondale
for President	for Vice President
200x200px
76th Governor of Georgia (1971–1975)	U.S. Senator from Minnesota (1964–1976)
Campaign
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The surprise winner of the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination was Jimmy Carter, a former state senator and governor of Georgia. When the primaries began, Carter was little-known at the national level, and many political pundits regarded a number of better-known candidates, such as Senator Henry M. Jackson from Washington, Representative Morris Udall from Arizona, Governor George Wallace of Alabama, and California Governor Jerry Brown, as the favorites for the nomination. However, in the wake of the Watergate scandal, Carter realized that his status as a Washington outsider, political centrist, and moderate reformer could give him an advantage over his better-known establishment rivals. Carter also took advantage of the record number of state primaries and caucuses in 1976 to eliminate his better-known rivals one-by-one.

Senator Jackson made a fateful decision not to compete in the early Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, which Jimmy Carter won after liberals split their votes among four other candidates. Though Jackson went on to win the Massachusetts and New York primaries, he was forced to quit the race on May 1 after losing the critical Pennsylvania primary to Carter by twelve percentage points. Carter then defeated Governor Wallace, his main conservative challenger, by a wide margin in the North Carolina primary, thus forcing Wallace to end his campaign. Representative Udall, a liberal, then became Carter's main challenger. He finished second to Carter in the New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, New York, Michigan, South Dakota, and Ohio primaries, and won the caucuses in his home state of Arizona, while running even with Carter in the New Mexico caucuses. However, the fact that Udall finished second to Carter in most of these races meant that Carter steadily accumulated more delegates for the nomination than he did.

As Carter closed in on the nomination, an "ABC" (Anybody But Carter) movement started among Northern and Western liberal Democrats who worried that Carter's Southern upbringing would make him too conservative for the Democratic Party. The leaders of the "ABC" movement – Idaho Senator Frank Church and California Governor Jerry Brown – both announced their candidacies for the Democratic nomination and defeated Carter in several late primaries. However, their campaigns started too late to prevent Carter from gathering the remaining delegates he needed to capture the nomination.

By June 1976, Carter had captured more than enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination. At the 1976 Democratic National Convention, Carter easily won the nomination on the first ballot; Udall finished in second place. Carter then chose Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale, a liberal and political protégé of Hubert Humphrey, as his running mate.

Republican Party

Main articles: 1976 Republican Party presidential primaries and 1976 Republican National Convention

Republican candidates

First ballot vote for the presidential nomination by state delegations

• Gerald Ford, President of the United States
• Ronald Reagan, former governor of California

Republican Party Ticket, 1976
Gerald Ford	Bob Dole
for President	for Vice President
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38th President of the United States (1974–1977)	U.S. Senator from Kansas (1969–1996)
Campaign
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The 1976 Republican National Convention at Kemper Arena in Kansas City. Vice Presidential nominee Bob Dole is on the far left, then Nancy Reagan, Ronald Reagan is at the center shaking hands with President Gerald Ford, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller is just to the right of Ford, followed by Susan Ford and First Lady Betty Ford.

The contest for the Republican Party's presidential nomination in 1976 was between two serious candidates: incumbent president Gerald Ford from Michigan, a member of the party's moderate wing, and former governor of California, Ronald Reagan, a member of the party's conservative wing. The presidential primary campaign between the two men was hard-fought and relatively even; by the start of the Republican Convention in August 1976, the race for the nomination was still too close to call. Ford defeated Reagan by a narrow margin on the first ballot at the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City, and chose Senator Bob Dole from Kansas as his running mate in place of incumbent Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, who had announced the previous year that he was not interested in being considered for the Vice Presidential nomination. The 1976 Republican Convention was the last political convention to open with the presidential nomination still being undecided until the actual balloting at the convention.

Others

• Roger MacBride, who had gained fame in the 1972 election as a faithless elector, ran as the nominee of the Libertarian Party.
• Eugene McCarthy, a former Democratic Senator from Minnesota, ran as an independent candidate.
• Ben Bubar, Prohibition Party nominee.
• Frank Zeidler, former mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, ran as the nominee of Socialist Party USA, which was founded in a split with Socialist Party of America.
• Gus Hall, four-time Communist Party candidate

General election

Fall campaign

Carter and Ford in debate

One of the advantages Ford held over Carter as the general election campaign began was that as president he was privileged to preside over events dealing with the United States Bicentennial; this often resulted in favorable publicity for Ford. The Washington, D.C., fireworks display on the Fourth of July was presided over by the president and televised nationally. On July 7, 1976, the President and First Lady served as hosts at a White House state dinner for Elizabeth II and Prince Philip of the United Kingdom, which was televised on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) network. These events were part of Ford's "Rose Garden" strategy to win the election, meaning that instead of appearing as a typical politician, Ford presented himself as a "tested leader" who was busily fulfilling the role of national leader and chief executive. Not until October did Ford leave the White House to campaign actively across the nation.

Jimmy Carter ran as a reformer who was "untainted" by Washington political scandals, which many voters found attractive in the wake of the Watergate scandal that had led to President Richard Nixon's resignation. Ford, although personally unconnected with Watergate, was seen by many as too close to the discredited Nixon administration, especially after he granted Nixon a presidential pardon for any crimes he might have committed during his term of office. Ford's pardon of Nixon caused his popularity, as measured by public-opinion polls, to plummet. Ford's refusal to explain his reasons for pardoning Nixon publicly (he would do so in his memoirs several years later), also hurt his image.

Ford unsuccessfully asked Congress to end the 1950s-era price controls on natural gas, which caused a dwindling of American natural gas reserves after the 1973 Oil Crisis. Carter stated during his campaign that he opposed the ending of the price controls and thought such a move would be "disastrous".

After the Democratic National Convention, Carter held a 33-point lead over Ford in the polls. However, as the campaign continued, the race greatly tightened. During the campaign Playboy magazine published a controversial interview with Carter; in the interview, Carter admitted to having "lusted in my heart" for women other than his wife and used the word "screw," which cut into his support among women and evangelical Christians. On September 23, Ford performed well in what was the first televised presidential debate since 1960. Polls taken after the debate showed that most viewers felt that Ford was the winner. Carter was also hurt by Ford's charges that he lacked the necessary experience to be an effective national leader, and that Carter was vague on many issues.

Carter campaign headquarters

However, Ford also committed a costly blunder in the campaign that halted his momentum. During the second presidential debate on October 6, Ford stumbled when he asserted that "there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration". He added that he did not "believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union" and made the same claim with regard to Yugoslavia and Romania (Yugoslavia was not a Warsaw Pact member). Ford refused to retract his statement for almost a week after the debate; as a result his surge in the polls stalled and Carter was able to maintain a slight lead in the polls.

A vice-presidential debate, the first ever formal one of its kind, between Bob Dole and Walter Mondale also hurt the Republican ticket when Dole asserted that military unpreparedness on the part of Democratic presidents was responsible for all of the wars the U.S. had fought in the 20th century. Dole, a World War II veteran, noted that in every 20th-century war from World War I to the Vietnam War, a Democrat had been president. Dole then pointed out that the number of U.S. casualties in "Democrat wars" was roughly equal to the population of Detroit. Many voters felt that Dole's criticism was unfairly harsh and that his dispassionate delivery made him seem cold. Years later, Dole would remark that he regretted the comment, having viewed it as hurting the Republican ticket. One factor which did help Ford in the closing days of the campaign was a series of popular television appearances he did with Joe Garagiola Sr., a retired baseball star for the St. Louis Cardinals and a well-known announcer for NBC Sports. Garagiola and Ford appeared in a number of shows in several large cities. During the show Garagiola would ask Ford questions about his life and beliefs; the shows were so informal, relaxed, and laid-back that some television critics labelled them the "Joe and Jerry Show". Ford and Garagiola obviously enjoyed one another's company, and they remained friends after the election was over.

Presidential debates

Main article: 1976 United States presidential debates

There were three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate during the 1976 general election.

Debates among candidates for the 1976 U.S. presidential election

No.	Date	Host	City	Moderator	Panelists	Participants	Viewership (Millions)
P1	Thursday, September 23, 1976	Walnut Street Theatre	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	Edwin Newman	Elizabeth Drew James P. Gannon Frank Reynolds	Governor Jimmy Carter President Gerald Ford	69.7
P2	Wednesday, October 6, 1976	Palace of Fine Arts	San Francisco, California	Pauline Frederick	Max Frankel Henry Trewhitt Richard Valeriani	Governor Jimmy Carter President Gerald Ford	63.9
VP	Friday, October 15, 1976	Alley Theatre	Houston, Texas	James Hoge	Marilyn Berger Hal Bruno Walter Mears	Senator Bob Dole Senator Walter Mondale	43.2
P3	Friday, October 22, 1976	Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall	Williamsburg, Virginia	Barbara Walters	Joseph Kraft Robert Maynard Jack Nelson	Governor Jimmy Carter President Gerald Ford	62.7

Results

Election results by county.

  Jimmy Carter

  Gerald Ford

Results by congressional district.

Despite his campaign's blunders, Ford managed to close the remaining gap in the polls and by election day, the race was judged to be even. It took most of that night and the following morning to determine the winner. It was not until 3:30 am (EST), that the NBC television network was able to declare that Carter had carried Mississippi and had thus accumulated more than the 270 electoral votes needed to win (seconds later, ABC News also declared Carter the winner based on projections for Carter in Wisconsin and Hawaii while CBS News announced Carter's victory at 3:45 am). Carter defeated Ford by two percentage points in the national popular vote.

The electoral vote was the closest since 1916; Carter carried 23 states with 297 electoral votes, while Ford won 27 states with 240 electoral votes (one elector from Washington state, pledged to Ford, voted for Reagan). Carter's victory came primarily from his near-sweep of the South (he lost only Virginia and Oklahoma) and his narrow victories in large Northern states, such as New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Ford did well in the West, carrying every state in that region except for Hawaii. The most tightly contested state in the election was Oregon; Ford won that state by under 2,000 votes.

A switch of 3,687 votes in Hawaii and 5,559 votes in Ohio from Carter to Ford would have resulted in Ford winning the election with 270 electoral votes. By percentage of the vote, the states that secured Carter's victory were Wisconsin (1.68% margin) and Ohio (.27% margin). Had Ford won these states and all other states he carried, he would have won the presidency. The 27 states he won were and still are the most states ever carried by a losing candidate for president. Had Ford won the election, the provisions of the 22nd amendment would have disqualified him from running in 1980 as he served more than two years of Nixon's second term.

Carter was the first Democrat since John F. Kennedy in 1960 to carry the states of the Deep South—Bill Clinton is the only Democrat since 1976 to carry more than one state from the Deep South, doing so in both 1992 and 1996—and the first since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 to carry a majority of all southern states. Carter performed very strongly in his home state of Georgia, carrying 66.7% of the vote and every county in the state. His winning of 23 states was only the first time since the 1960 election and the second time in history that the winner of the election won fewer than half the states. His 50.1% of the vote was the only time since 1964 that a Democrat managed to obtain an absolute majority of the popular vote in a presidential election until Barack Obama won 52.9% of the vote in 2008. Carter is one of five Democrats since the American Civil War to obtain an absolute majority of the popular vote, the others being Samuel J. Tilden, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson and Barack Obama.

This election represents the last time to date that Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, or South Carolina would vote Democratic, and the last time North Carolina would vote Democratic until 2008, as well as the last time Florida voted Democratic until 1996, the last time Arkansas, Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee voted Democratic until 1992. It is also the last time in which Shasta, Yuba, Placer, El Dorado and Madera Counties in California, Adams and Brown in Ohio, Brazoria, Williamson and McLennan Counties in Texas, Madison County in Alabama, Duval and Brevard Counties in Florida, Warren County, Kentucky and St. Mary's County, Maryland would vote Democratic. Cobb and Gwinnett Counties in Georgia would never again vote Democratic until 2016. This election was the last time that a Democrat won the presidency without winning California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.

It was the first time in exactly 100 years (since 1876) when Florida and Virginia supported different candidates. This would happen again in 1996 and 2016. It was also the first time since Oklahoma statehood in 1907 when the Sooner State and Tennessee supported different candidates, an occurrence replicated only in 1992 and 1996.

Statistics

Presidential candidate	Party	Home state	Popular vote		Electoral vote	Running mate
			Count	Pct		Vice-presidential candidate	Home state	Elect. vote
James Earl Carter Jr.	Democratic	Georgia	40,831,881	50.08%	297	Walter Frederick Mondale	Minnesota	297
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. (Incumbent)	Republican	Michigan	39,148,634	48.02%	240	Robert Joseph Dole	Kansas	241
Ronald Wilson Reagan	Republican	California	—	—	1
Eugene McCarthy	None	Minnesota	740,460	0.91%	0			0
Roger MacBride	Libertarian	Virginia	172,557	0.21%	0	David Bergland	California	0
Lester Maddox	American Independent	Georgia	170,274	0.21%	0	William Dyke	Wisconsin	0
Thomas J. Anderson	American		158,271	0.19%	0	Rufus Shackelford	Florida	0
Peter Camejo	Socialist Workers	California	90,986	0.11%	0	Willie Mae Reid	Illinois	0
Gus Hall	Communist	New York	58,709	0.07%	0	Jarvis Tyner	New York	0
Margaret Wright	People's	California	49,013	0.06%	0	Benjamin Spock	Connecticut	0
Lyndon LaRouche	U.S. Labor	New York	40,043	0.05%	0	R. Wayne Evans	Michigan	0
Other			70,785	0.08%	—	Other		—
Total			81,531,584	100%	538			538
Needed to win					270			270

Source (Popular Vote):

Source (Electoral Vote):

Popular vote
Carter			50.08%
Ford			48.02%
McCarthy			0.91%
Others			0.57%

Electoral vote
Carter			55.20%
Ford			44.61%
Reagan			0.19%

File:1976 Electoral College Map.png

650px

• 

  Results by county, shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote

Results by state

This election represents the second time that the winning candidate has received a majority of the electoral votes although the second-place candidate carried a majority of the states. It had previously happened in the 1960 election.

States/districts won by Carter/Mondale

States/districts won by Ford/Dole

		Jimmy Carter Democratic			Gerald Ford Republican			Eugene McCarthy Independent			Roger MacBride Libertarian			Margin		State Total
State	electoral votes	#	%	electoral votes	#	%	electoral votes	#	%	electoral votes	#	%	electoral votes	#	%	#
Alabama	9	659,170	55.73	9	504,070	42.61	-	-	-	-	1,481	0.13	-	155,100	13.11	1,182,850	AL
Alaska	3	44,058	35.65	-	71,555	57.90	3	-	-	-	6,785	5.49	-	-27,497	-22.25	123,574	AK
Arizona	6	295,602	39.80	-	418,642	56.37	6	19,229	2.59	-	7,647	1.03	-	-123,040	-16.57	742,719	AZ
Arkansas	6	499,614	64.94	6	268,753	34.93	-	647	0.08	-	-	-	-	230,861	30.01	769,396	AR
California	45	3,742,284	47.57	-	3,882,244	49.35	45	58,412	0.74	-	56,388	0.72	-	-139,960	-1.78	7,867,117	CA
Colorado	7	460,353	42.58	-	584,367	54.05	7	26,107	2.41	-	5,330	0.49	-	-124,014	-11.47	1,081,135	CO
Connecticut	8	647,895	46.90	-	719,261	52.06	8	-	-	-	-	-	-	-71,366	-5.17	1,381,526	CT
Delaware	3	122,596	51.98	3	109,831	46.57	-	2,437	1.03	-	-	-	-	12,765	5.41	235,834	DE
D.C.	3	137,818	81.63	3	27,873	16.51	-	-	-	-	274	0.16	-	109,945	65.12	168,830	DC
Florida	17	1,636,000	51.93	17	1,469,531	46.64	-	23,643	0.75	-	103	0.00	-	166,469	5.28	3,150,631	FL
Georgia	12	979,409	66.74	12	483,743	32.96	-	991	0.07	-	175	0.01	-	495,666	33.78	1,467,458	GA
Hawaii	4	147,375	50.59	4	140,003	48.06	-	-	-	-	3,923	1.35	-	7,372	2.53	291,301	HI
Idaho	4	126,549	37.12	-	204,151	59.88	4	-	-	-	3,558	1.04	-	-77,602	-22.76	340,932	ID
Illinois	26	2,271,295	48.13	-	2,364,269	50.10	26	55,939	1.19	-	8,057	0.17	-	-92,974	-1.97	4,718,833	IL
Indiana	13	1,014,714	45.70	-	1,183,958	53.32	13	-	-	-	-	-	-	-169,244	-7.62	2,220,362	IN
Iowa	8	619,931	48.46	-	632,863	49.47	8	20,051	1.57	-	1,452	0.11	-	-12,932	-1.01	1,279,306	IA
Kansas	7	430,421	44.94	-	502,752	52.49	7	13,185	1.38	-	3,242	0.34	-	-72,331	-7.55	957,845	KS
Kentucky	9	615,717	52.75	9	531,852	45.57	-	6,837	0.59	-	814	0.07	-	83,865	7.19	1,167,142	KY
Louisiana	10	661,365	51.73	10	587,446	45.95	-	6,588	0.52	-	3,325	0.26	-	73,919	5.78	1,278,439	LA
Maine	4	232,279	48.07	-	236,320	48.91	4	10,874	2.25	-	10	0.00	-	-4,041	-0.84	483,208	ME
Maryland	10	759,612	53.04	10	672,661	46.96	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	86,951	6.07	1,432,273	MD
Massachusetts	14	1,429,475	56.11	14	1,030,276	40.44	-	65,637	2.58	-	135	0.01	-	399,199	15.67	2,547,557	MA
Michigan	21	1,696,714	46.44	-	1,893,742	51.83	21	47,905	1.31	-	5,406	0.15	-	-197,028	-5.39	3,653,749	MI
Minnesota	10	1,070,440	54.90	10	819,395	42.02	-	35,490	1.82	-	3,529	0.18	-	251,045	12.87	1,949,931	MN
Mississippi	7	381,309	49.56	7	366,846	47.68	-	4,074	0.53	-	2,787	0.36	-	14,463	1.88	769,360	MS
Missouri	12	998,387	51.10	12	927,443	47.47	-	24,029	1.23	-	-	-	-	70,944	3.63	1,953,600	MO
Montana	4	149,259	45.40	-	173,703	52.84	4	-	-	-	-	-	-	-24,444	-7.44	328,734	MT
Nebraska	5	233,692	38.46	-	359,705	59.19	5	9,409	1.55	-	1,482	0.24	-	-126,013	-20.74	607,668	NE
Nevada	3	92,479	45.81	-	101,273	50.17	3	-	-	-	1,519	0.75	-	-8,794	-4.36	201,876	NV
New Hampshire	4	147,635	43.47	-	185,935	54.75	4	4,095	1.21	-	936	0.28	-	-38,300	-11.28	339,618	NH
New Jersey	17	1,444,653	47.92	-	1,509,688	50.08	17	32,717	1.09	-	9,449	0.31	-	-65,035	-2.16	3,014,472	NJ
New Mexico	4	201,148	48.28	-	211,419	50.75	4	-	-	-	1,110	0.27	-	-10,271	-2.47	416,590	NM
New York	41	3,389,558	51.95	41	3,100,791	47.52	-	4,303	0.07	-	12,197	0.19	-	288,767	4.43	6,525,225	NY
North Carolina	13	927,365	55.27	13	741,960	44.22	-	-	-	-	2,219	0.13	-	185,405	11.05	1,677,906	NC
North Dakota	3	136,078	45.80	-	153,470	51.66	3	2,952	0.99	-	256	0.09	-	-17,392	-5.85	297,094	ND
Ohio	25	2,011,621	48.92	25	2,000,505	48.65	-	58,258	1.42	-	8,961	0.22	-	11,116	0.27	4,111,873	OH
Oklahoma	8	532,442	48.75	-	545,708	49.96	8	14,101	1.29	-	-	-	-	-13,266	-1.21	1,092,251	OK
Oregon	6	490,407	47.62	-	492,120	47.78	6	40,207	3.90	-	-	-	-	-1,713	-0.17	1,029,876	OR
Pennsylvania	27	2,328,677	50.40	27	2,205,604	47.73	-	50,584	1.09	-	-	-	-	123,073	2.66	4,620,787	PA
Rhode Island	4	227,636	55.36	4	181,249	44.08	-	479	0.12	-	715	0.17	-	46,387	11.28	411,170	RI
South Carolina	8	450,825	56.17	8	346,140	43.13	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	104,685	13.04	802,594	SC
South Dakota	4	147,068	48.91	-	151,505	50.39	4	-	-	-	1,619	0.54	-	-4,437	-1.48	300,678	SD
Tennessee	10	825,879	55.94	10	633,969	42.94	-	5,004	0.34	-	1,375	0.09	-	191,910	13.00	1,476,346	TN
Texas	26	2,082,319	51.14	26	1,953,300	47.97	-	20,118	0.49	-	263	0.01	-	129,019	3.17	4,071,884	TX
Utah	4	182,110	33.65	-	337,908	62.44	4	3,907	0.72	-	2,438	0.45	-	-155,798	-28.79	541,198	UT
Vermont	3	81,044	43.14	-	102,085	54.34	3	4,001	2.13	-	4	0.00	-	-21,041	-11.20	187,855	VT
Virginia	12	813,896	47.96	-	836,554	49.29	12	-	-	-	4,648	0.27	-	-22,658	-1.34	1,697,094	VA
Washington	9	717,323	46.11	-	777,732	50.00	8	36,986	2.38	-	5,042	0.32	-	-60,409	-3.88	1,555,534	WA
West Virginia	6	435,914	58.07	6	314,760	41.93	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	121,154	16.14	750,674	WV
Wisconsin	11	1,040,232	49.50	11	1,004,987	47.83	-	34,943	1.66	-	3,814	0.18	-	35,245	1.68	2,101,336	WI
Wyoming	3	62,239	39.81	-	92,717	59.30	3	624	0.40	-	89	0.06	-	-30,478	-19.49	156,343	WY
TOTALS:	538	40,831,881	50.08	297	39,148,634	48.02	240	740,460	0.91	-	172,557	0.21	-	1,683,247	2.06	81,531,584	US

Close states

Gerald Ford (right) watching election returns with Joe Garagiola on election night in 1976. Garagiola is reacting to television reports that Ford had just lost Texas to Carter.

A campaign button from election night where Carter and Mondale spent the evening in Flint Michigan at a rally It is notable as only a handful of counties in Michigan went to Carter in 1976, and no surrounding counties where Carter held the rally went to him.

A Ford-Dole campaign button.

States where margin of victory was under 1% (35 electoral votes):

1. Oregon, 0.16%
2. Ohio, 0.27%
3. Maine, 0.84%

States where margin of victory was under 5% (264 electoral votes):

1. Iowa, 1.01%
2. Oklahoma, 1.21%
3. Virginia, 1.34%
4. South Dakota, 1.48%
5. Wisconsin, 1.68% (tipping point state)
6. California, 1.78%
7. Mississippi, 1.88%
8. Illinois, 1.97%
9. New Jersey, 2.16%
10. New Mexico, 2.47%
11. Hawaii, 2.53%
12. Pennsylvania, 2.66%
13. Texas, 3.17%
14. Missouri, 3.63%
15. Washington, 3.88%
16. Nevada, 4.36%
17. New York, 4.43%

States where margin of victory was more than 5%, but less than 10% (105 electoral votes):

1. Connecticut, 5.16%
2. Florida, 5.29%
3. Michigan, 5.39%
4. Delaware, 5.41%
5. Louisiana, 5.78%
6. North Dakota, 5.86%
7. Maryland, 6.08%
8. Kentucky, 7.18%
9. Montana, 7.44%
10. Kansas, 7.55%
11. Indiana, 7.62%

Voter demographics

Social groups and the presidential vote, 1976
	Size	Carter	Ford
Party
Democratic	43	77	22
Independent	23	43	54
Republican	28	9	90
Ideology
Liberal	18	70	26
Moderate	51	51	48
Conservative	31	29	70
Ethnicity
Black	10	82	16
Hispanic	2	75	24
White	88	47	52
Gender
Female	48	50	48
Male	52	50	48
Religion
Protestant	46	44	55
White Protestant	41	43	57
Catholic	25	54	44
Jewish	5	64	34
Family income
Less than US$10,000	13	58	40
$10,000–$14,999	15	55	43
$15,000–$24,999	29	48	50
$25,000–$50,000	24	36	62
Over $50,000	5	—	—
Occupation
Professional or manager	39	41	57
Clerical, sales, white-collar	11	46	53
Blue-collar	17	57	41
Farmer	3	—	—
Unemployed	3	65	34
Education
Less than high school	11	58	41
High school graduate	28	54	46
Some college	28	51	49
College graduate	27	45	55
Union membership
Labor union household	28	59	39
No member of household in union	62	43	55
Age
18–21 years old	6	48	50
22–29 years old	17	51	46
30–44 years old	31	49	49
45–59 years old	23	47	52
60 years or older	18	47	52
Region
East	25	51	47
South	27	54	45
White South	22	46	52
Midwest	27	48	50
Far West	19	46	51
Community size
City over 250,000	18	60	40
Suburb/small city	53	53	47
Rural/town	29	47	53

Source: CBS News/ New York Times interviews with 12,782 voters as they left the polls, as reported in the New York Times, November 9, 1980, p. 28, and in further analysis. The 1976 data are from CBS News interviews.

Characteristics

• As of 2016, the 1976 election was the most recent time that a Democratic candidate carried any of the following states: Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas. North Carolina did not vote for a Democratic candidate again until Obama in 2008. Obama also carried Virginia, the only state in the South that Carter did not win.
• As of 2020, the 1976 election is the earliest election with a living nominee (Carter) and both living vice presidential nominees (Mondale and Dole).
• As of 2016, the 1976 election was the most recent time that a Democratic candidate won the White House without carrying California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Maine, Vermont, and Washington.
• This election was the first time since 1908 that Nevada did not back the winning candidate, something that would happen again in 2016.
• This is the last election that Missouri voted Democratic and Iowa voted Republican in the same election.

It was also the first election that New Mexico did not back the winning candidate and the last time until 2000 (and 2016) and the only election that New Mexico did not back the winner of national popular vote since it had achieved statehood in 1912. In 2000 and 2016, the national popular vote winner eventually lost the electoral vote and thus the presidency.

• Ford carried 27 out of 50 states, the most ever won by a losing candidate. He became the second and as of 2016 the last person not to win the presidency while carrying more than half the states. The first was Nixon in 1960, who won in 26 states.
• This election marks the only time in U.S. history that the two major candidates and their running mates would all run for and lose the presidency, coming second in the general election: Ford in 1976, Carter in 1980, Mondale in 1984 and Dole in 1996.
• With the triumph of Jimmy Carter, the 1976 presidential election was the last time in which a winning presidential candidate from the Democratic Party would win the presidency at the same time their party won majorities in both chambers of Congress and eventually go on to see that party retain control of both houses in the following midterm election (although Carter's party still lost seats in both houses). The subsequent victorious Democrats, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, witnessed the House of Representatives and Senate switch to Republican control during Clinton's in 1994 and Obama losing the House and several seats in the Senate in 2010 (though Clinton and Obama would both go on to be reelected and this would turn out to be Carter's only midterm election).
• Carter carried 1,711 counties, to Ford's 1,403. Since this election, only Bill Clinton in both 1992 and 1996 carried more than 1,000 counties, and no Democrat since 1976 has won more counties than their Republican opponent.
• This is the first time in American history where both candidates eventually would become the longest lived president in the history of the United States. Gerald Ford held the record from November 12, 2006 to November 25, 2017. Jimmy Carter got the record in March 22, 2019. This happened once more, in 1980, which also involved Carter.

See also

• Presidency of Jimmy Carter
• History of the United States (1964–1980)
• 1976 United States House of Representatives elections
• 1976 United States Senate elections
• 1976 United States gubernatorial elections
• Inauguration of Jimmy Carter

External links

• The Election Wall's 1976 Election Video Page
• 1976 popular vote by counties
• 1976 popular vote by states (with bar graphs)
• Campaign commercials from the 1976 election
• How close was the 1976 election? at the Wayback Machine (archived August 25, 2012) — Michael Sheppard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (archived)
• Election of 1976 in Counting the Votes