Carter faced a major primary challenger in Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, who won 12 contests and received more than seven million votes nationwide, enough for him to refuse to concede the nomination until the second day of the convention. This remains the last primary election in which an incumbent president's party nomination was still contested going into the convention.
At the time, Iran was experiencing a major uprising that severely damaged its oil infrastructure and greatly weakened its capability to produce oil.[4] In January 1979, shortly after Iran's leader ShahMohammad Reza Pahlavi fled the country, lead Iranian opposition figure AyatollahRuhollah Khomeini returned from a 14-year exile and with the help of the Iranian people toppled the Shah which in turn led to the installation of a new government that was hostile towards the United States.[4] The damage that resulted from Khomeini's rise to power was soon felt throughout many American cities.[4] In the spring and summer of 1979 inflation was on the rise and various parts of the country were experiencing energy shortages.[5] The gas lines last seen just after the Arab/Israeli war of 1973 were back and President Carter was widely blamed.
President Carter's approval ratings were very low—28% according to Gallup,[6] with some other polls giving even lower numbers. In July Carter returned from Camp David and announced a reshuffling of his cabinet on national television, giving a speech whose downcast demeanor resulted in it being widely labelled the "malaise speech." While the speech caused a brief upswing in the president's approval rating, the decision to dismiss several cabinet members was widely seen as a rash act of desperation, causing his approval rating to plummet back into the twenties. Some Democrats felt it worth the risk to mount a challenge to Carter in the primaries. Although Hugh Carey and William Proxmire decided not to run, Senator Edward M. Kennedy finally made his long-expected run at the presidency.
Ted Kennedy had been asked to take his brother Robert's place at the 1968 Democratic National Convention and had refused. He ran for Senate Majority Whip in 1969, with many thinking that he was going to use this as a platform for the 1972 race.[7] However, then came the notorious Chappaquiddick incident that killed Kennedy's car passenger Mary Jo Kopechne. Kennedy subsequently refused to run for president in 1972 and 1976. Many of his supporters suspected that Chappaquiddick had destroyed any ability he had to win on a national level. Despite this, in the summer of 1979, Kennedy consulted with his extended family, and that fall, he let it leak out that because of Carter's failings, 1980 might indeed be the year he would try for the nomination. Gallup had him beating the president by over two to one, but Carter remained confident, famously claiming at a June White House gathering of Congressmen that if Kennedy ran against him in the primary, he would "whip his ass."[8]
Kennedy's official announcement was scheduled for early November. A television interview with Roger Mudd of CBS a few days before the announcement went badly, however. Kennedy gave an "incoherent and repetitive"[9] answer to the question of why he was running, and the polls, which showed him leading the President by 58–25 in August now had him ahead 49–39.[10] Meanwhile, U.S. animosity towards the Khomeini régime greatly accelerated after 52 American hostages were taken by a group of Islamist students and militants at the U.S. embassy in Tehran and Carter's approval ratings jumped in the 60-percent range in some polls, due to a "rally ‘round the flag" effect[11] and an appreciation of Carter's calm handling of the crisis. Kennedy was suddenly left far behind. Carter beat Kennedy decisively in Iowa and New Hampshire. Carter decisively defeated Kennedy everywhere except Massachusetts, until impatience began to build with the President's strategy on Iran. When the primaries in New York and Connecticut came around, it was Kennedy who won.
Momentum built for Ted Kennedy after Carter's attempt to rescue the hostages on April 25 ended in disaster and drew further skepticism towards Carter's leadership ability.[12] Nevertheless, Carter was still able to maintain a substantial lead even after Kennedy won the key states of California and New Jersey in June. Despite this, Kennedy refused to drop out, and the 1980 Democratic National Convention was one of the nastiest on record. On the penultimate day, Kennedy conceded the nomination and called for a more liberal party platform in the Dream Shall Never Die speech, considered by many as the best speech of his career, and one of the best political speeches of the 20th Century.[13] On the stage on the final day, Kennedy for the most part ignored Carter.
Far-right politician David Duke tried to run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Despite being six years too young to be qualified to run for president, Duke attempted to place his name onto the ballot in twelve states stating that he wanted to be a power broker who could "select issues and form a platform representing the majority of this country" at the Democratic National Convention.[14][15]
^This should not be taken as a finalized list of results. While a significant amount of research was done, there were a number of Delegates who were not bound by the instruction, or "Pledged" to a candidate, and to simplify the data these delegates were considered "Uncommitted". Some states also held primaries for the delegate positions, and these on occasion were where slates or candidates pledge to a certain candidate might be elected; however, as these elections allowed for a single person to vote for multiple candidates, as many as the number of positions being filled, it is difficult to determine how many people actually voted in these primaries. For this reason, while the results of some are in the table, they are not included in the popular vote summaries at the bottom of the table.
^Three percent of the precincts had not yet reported their results in the source used.
^20 communities of 503 had not yet reported their results in the source used.
^Only 98 of 100 precincts were tallied in the source, and only by percentages.
^Only 57% of the seats were decided in the source.
^Includes 1,378 votes (0.36%) for Cliff Finch, 513 votes (0.13%) for Lyndon LaRouche.
^Only 82% of the precincts were called in the source. The number of delegates elected was also unclear.
^Only 63% of the delegate selections were given in the source, and only by percentages.
^Only 1,079 of 1,629 precincts were called in the source.
^Only 90% of meetings were accounted for in the source.
^Only 37 of 45 counties were called in the source.
^Only four of five districts held conventions on this date.
^This is an assumption; no sources were found for the other District Conventions, but they occurred sometime before or during the State Convention.
^Only partial county returns were available for Arizona and Washington. Additionally, states where no county data was available are shaded according to the statewide winners share of the vote or by the percentage of delegate allocation. Only township level data was available for Connecticut.
References
^ ab"DISENCHANTED". The Boston Globe. Boston, Massachusetts. July 1, 1980. Retrieved April 2, 2024.
^Kalb, Deborah (2015). Guide to U.S. Elections. CQ Press. ISBN9781483380384 – via Google Books. In 1980 a then-record thirty-seven primaries (including those in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) provided more opportunity for mass participation in the nominating process than ever before.
^ abc"Oil Squeeze". Time magazine. February 5, 1979. Archived from the original on March 7, 2008. Retrieved May 22, 2013.
^"Inflation-proofing". ConsumerReports.org. February 11, 2010. Archived from the original on March 28, 2010. Retrieved January 22, 2011.
^Marra, Robin F.; Ostrom, Charles W.; Simon, Dennis M. (January 1, 1990). "Foreign Policy and Presidential Popularity: Creating Windows of Opportunity in the Perpetual Election". The Journal of Conflict Resolution. 34 (4): 588–623. doi:10.1177/0022002790034004002. JSTOR174181. S2CID154620443.
^ abcJohnson, Malcolm (Associated Press) (April 28, 1980). "Kennedy wins again but gains little". LexisNexis Academic. The final totals showed Kennedy with 7,793 votes and Carter with 7,567. About 850 votes were divided between uncommitted and other candidates, but neither category had enough votes to win a delegate.
^White, Keith; Edwards, Robert (June 15, 1980). "Carter gets 57 of state's 77 delegates". Springfield Leader and Press. Springfield, Missouri. Retrieved April 1, 2024.
^ ab"Key state Democrats endorse Ted Kennedy". The Berkshire Eagle. December 28, 1979. p. 3. Archived from the original on February 22, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
^"Kennedy stresses Dukakis support". Google News Search Archive. The Free-Lance Star. June 16, 1988. p. 23. Retrieved 2 December 2023. Even Kennedy is said by friends to have laughed at that idea when it was first proposed. Kennedy denies this, and he has loyally stumped the country for his governor, reciprocating the support that Michael S. Dukakis gave Kennedy's unsuccessful presidential candidate in 1980."
^ ab"Open Letter". The Burlington Free Press. March 4, 1980. p. 26. Archived from the original on February 26, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
^"North Is Warm, But Uncommitted, To Ted Kennedy". Petoskey News-Review. November 15, 1979. p. 12. Archived from the original on February 18, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
^"Kennedy steering committee formed". Great Falls Tribune. December 8, 1979. p. 13. Archived from the original on February 21, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
^"Kennedy 'Invades' The South". The Miami Herald. November 10, 1979. p. 41. Archived from the original on February 14, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
^"Kennedy chairmen named". Sioux City Journal. December 4, 1979. p. 9. Archived from the original on February 21, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
^Cohen, Marty (May 15, 2009). The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform. p. 197. ISBN 978-0-226-11238-1 – via Google Books.
Norrander, Barbara (1986). "Correlates of Vote Choice in the 1980 Presidential Primaries". Journal of Politics. 48 (1): 156–166. doi:10.2307/2130931. JSTOR2130931. S2CID143610156.
Southwell, Priscilla L. (1986). "The Politics of Disgruntlement: Nonvoting and Defection among Supporters of Nomination Losers, 1968–1984". Political Behavior. 8 (1): 81–95. doi:10.1007/BF00987593. S2CID154450840.
Stanley, Timothy (2010). Kennedy vs. Carter: The 1980 Battle for the Democratic Party's Soul. University Press of Kansas. ISBN978-0-7006-1702-9.
Stone, Walter J. (1984). "Prenomination Candidate Choice and General Election Behavior: Iowa Presidential Activists in 1980". American Journal of Political Science. 28 (2): 361–378. doi:10.2307/2110877. JSTOR2110877.
Ward, Jon (2019). Camelot's End : Kennedy vs. Carter and the Fight that Broke the Democratic Party. New York: Twelve. ISBN978-1-4555-9138-1.
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