Regan V Carter

The election of 1980 was a key turning point in American politics. To present day, American’s still have strong feelings and opinions about their former President, Jimmy Carter. The result from the 1980 election, led to the appointment of Ronald Reagan as the 40th President of the United States of America, and the Republicans gained control of the Senate for the first time in twenty-five years. There are several reasons behind the animosity of American’s towards Jimmy Carter at the time and in present day. Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party were preferred over President Carter and the Democratic Party due to international and domestic issues that were occurring at the time of the 1980 election. The international issues were centred round the Iran Hostage situation, the Panama Canal Treaties and President Carter’s actions towards the Soviet Government. On the home front, the President was under scrutiny by the public due to his political pardons and his handling of the economy including high inflation rates and high unemployment. President Carter was also under scrutiny from conservative political and religious groups as to his ‘liberal’ policies that he had enacted during his term in office. In addition to the previous mentioned topics, the personality traits of Jimmy Carter were also examined during the 1980 election.

Jimmy Carter came to office after the presidential election of 1976, which followed the resignation of President Richard Nixon in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Carter’s campaign had him depicted as a Washington ‘outsider’ and a reformer, which connected to the American public following the incidents of the Nixon administration. Carter was the first presidential candidate elected directly from the Deep South since 1948.

On President Carter’s first full day in office, he fulfilled his most controversial campaign promise. Carter granted a full presidential pardon to all Vietnam-era draft resisters. The director of the Veterans of Foreign