In the 1976 United States presidential election, Jimmy Carter and his running mate, Walter Mondale, were elected president and vice president, defeating incumbent Republican president Gerald Ford and his running mate, Bob Dole.
Carter, a Democrat and former governor of Georgia, launched his presidential bid in December 1974, as the Constitution of Georgia barred him from running for a second term as governor. In the wake of the Watergate scandal, the declining popularity of President Ford due to his pardon of Nixon, and the severe 1973–1975 recession, many Democrats were sure of victory in the 1976 presidential election. As a result, 17 Democrats ran for their party's nomination in 1976. Carter's opponents mocked his candidacy by saying "Jimmy, who?", for him being relatively unknown outside Georgia. In response, Carter began saying "My name is Jimmy Carter, and I'm running for president." Carter extensively campaigned in the primaries, and in the end received 39.19% of his party's primary votes.
The 1976 Democratic National Convention was held at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Carter, after getting a sufficient number of delegates to be the nominee, shortlisted six possible vice presidential candidates and finally selected Mondale of Minnesota. While choosing Mondale, Carter emphasized Mondale's experience in Washington D.C. as he himself was a Southern "outsider". With President Ford's declining approval ratings, former California governor Ronald Reagan announced his candidacy for president, but Ford finally won the Republican nomination with 1,187 delegates to Reagan's 1,070.
The Carter campaign used various television advertisements that promised to bring back integrity and trust in the government after the Watergate scandal. Mondale and Rosalynn Carter, too, campaigned for the ticket in various states. The League of Women Voters decided to conduct debates between the presidential and vice-presidential candidates, to which both the campaigns agreed. In one of the presidential debates, while answering a question on the U.S. relationship with the Soviet Union and its influence in Europe, Ford said: "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration." This gaffe likely damaged Ford's campaign. On election day, Carter carried 23 states with 297 electoral votes, while Ford won 27 states with 240 electoral votes. However, Ford left office with a 53 percent approval rating and 32 percent disapproval rating.Gallup, Inc.
Background
Jimmy Carter was born in Plains, Georgia, in 1924, to a family of traditional farmers. After his 1946 graduation from the United States Naval Academy, he served on submarines in the United States Navy but resigned in 1953 at the rank of Lieutenant after the unexpected death of his father and moved back to Plains with his wife Rosalynn and the rest of his family where he established a highly successful peanut farm business. In 1962 Carter embarked on his political career as a write-in candidate for the Georgia State Senate and won the 14th district seat. He served two terms in the state senate before he resigned in 1966 and was succeeded by his cousin Hugh Carter. He contested the Georgia Democratic gubernatorial primary in 1966 but lost the race to Ellis Arnall, coming in third place. The Democratic nominee Lester Maddox won the election. Carter ran again in the 1970 gubernatorial primaries. Governor Maddox was prohibited by the Georgia state constitution from running for reelection, so former governor Carl E. Sanders was Carter's main opponent in the primaries. With 49.62% of the primary vote, Carter was leading Sanders, who had 37.77% of the vote. Both of them qualified for a separate primary runoff election, which Carter won with approximately 160,000 more votes than Sanders.
Carter ran on a populist platform against Hal Suit, the Republican nominee. Carter had the support of many regular Democrats, such as former representative Carl Vinson, Senator Richard B. Russell, and Governor Maddox. Carter called for an end to busing as a means to control racial segregation in public and private schools, believing that to win the election he would have to get the votes of whites who were uneasy about integration. Consequently, he limited his campaign appearances before African American groups, while seeking both the black vote and the "Wallace vote".
On November 3, 1970, Carter won the Georgia governorship by an almost 20 percent margin. During his tenure as governor, he served on the National Governors' Conference's executive committee. He was also the campaign chairman for the Democratic National Committee in the 1974 congressional midterm elections. As governor, he signed a revised death-penalty statute that re-introduced that criminal penalty in the state. Another significant achievement was managing to successfully reduce state bureaucracy by merging 300 state agencies into just 22 and the reduced spending resulted in a substantial budget surplus of $116 million (equivalent to about $720 million in 2026) in the Georgia state treasury by the time Carter left the Governor’s mansion. Although he also achieved success in protecting the environment and getting increased funding for schools and his ability to cooperate with Democratic politicians in the state legislature is often regarded as demanding, and gained him a reputation as an arrogant governor with a "holier than thou" attitude which made him unpopular among members of the lower and upper house.
President Richard Nixon had narrowly won the 1968 presidential election during a period of deep political division and chaos caused by opposition to the Vietnam War and four years later was re-elected in one of the biggest landslide victories in American history in 1972. But in 1974, he resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal in which he was deeply implicated and under the threat of facing impeachment. Vice president Gerald Ford ascended to the presidency, becoming the first president to take office without having been elected as either president or vice president, having been appointed after Nixon's first vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned in the wake of a tax scandal. Ford nominated Nelson Rockefeller as his vice president.
Gaining the nomination
Preparing for a run
As the Georgia state constitution barred him from running for a second term as governor, Carter announced his candidacy for president on December 12, 1974. He was the second Democrat to formally announce his candidacy, after Mo Udall. During his campaign announcement speech, he emphasized promises of decency, equality, freedom, and his religious values. He said:
Initially, many political experts gave Carter little chance of winning the Democratic nomination, because he was little-known outside Georgia, His opponents mocked his candidacy by saying, "Jimmy, who?". In response, Carter started to say, "My name is Jimmy Carter, and I'm running for president". Early polling data showed that a majority of the voters were undecided, but showed a preference for candidates such as Hubert Humphrey and Ted Kennedy. Besides positioning him as anti‐establishment and ideologically centrist, the Carter campaign made early primaries and caucuses a pivotal point in their campaign. Their strategy called for a strong effort in crucial early states.
Democratic presidential primaries
In the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, the declining popularity of President Ford due to his pardon of Nixon, and the severe recession of 1974–75, many Democrats were sure of victory in the presidential election. As a result, 17 Democrats were running for the nomination. Primaries were held in all 50 states, from January 19 to June 8, 1976. Apart from Carter, early candidates included Mo Udall, George Wallace, Jerry Brown, Frank Church, Henry M. Jackson, and Sargent Shriver.
There was speculation about the potential candidacy of former vice president and presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey and Senator Ted Kennedy. Kennedy declined to run due to his promise to his mother not to run for president. Humphrey, too, declined to run in the primaries, but he hinted at a campaign and expressed his willingness to accept the nomination. Although Carter led in the Iowa caucus, 37.18% of those voters were uncommitted. George Wallace won the Mississippi caucus after his entry in the primaries. After that, Carter won most of the caucuses and primaries, with an exception being Jerry Brown winning 204 delegates from his home state of California. Although Henry M. Jackson won the Massachusetts and New York primaries, he dropped out after losing the critical Pennsylvania primary to Carter. Udall carried his home state of Arizona and Washington D.C. The early count in the Wisconsin primary showed Udall leading, but eventually Carter won that state.
Carter's primary campaign raised $13.8 million, with $3.5 million coming from federal matching funds. Southern rock groups like The Allman Brothers Band, with whom Carter had a personal relationship, hosted campaign fundraisers during the primaries. One of the band's shows in Providence, Rhode Island resulted in over $64,000 being raised in 1975. A Florida campaign fundraising event that featured Betts, Daniels, The Marshall Tucker Band, Bonnie Bramlett, and the Outlaws raised an additional $280,000 for the Carter campaign. Jimmy Buffett also aided the Carter campaign in Oregon. Not only did these fundraisers help Carter raise money but they also boosted his name recognition around the country, especially since he was not very well known outside of Georgia.
By the end of primaries, Carter had received 39.19% of the popular vote, Brown 15.39%, Wallace 12.29%, Udall 10.13%, Jackson 7.13%, Church 5.22%, and the rest under 5%.
Democratic National Convention
The 1976 Democratic National Convention was convened at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Notably, Barbara Jordan became the first African-American woman to deliver the keynote address at a Democratic National Convention. With most contests in the states settled in Carter's favor, the convention delegates overwhelmingly favored Carter, although many other candidates also won delegates. Carter received 2,239 delegates, Udall 330, Brown 301, Wallace 57, McCormack 22, Church 19, Humphrey and Jackson each received 10, and other candidates received the remaining 22 delegates. In his acceptance speech, Carter referred to the Vietnam war and the Watergate scandal and said:
Carter, after getting a sufficient number of delegates to be the nominee, shortlisted six possible vice presidential candidates, which included senators Walter Mondale, Edmund Muskie, John Glenn, Frank Church, Adlai Stevenson III, and Henry "Scoop" Jackson. He ultimately selected Mondale to be his running mate, emphasizing Mondale's experience in Washington D.C., as Carter himself was a Southern "outsider". Carter said that his ticket could bring "the national vigor, vision, aggressive leadership, and a president who feels your pain, shares your dream and takes his strength, wisdom, and courage from citizens". The convention energized the Democratic base and gave the Carter-Mondale ticket a bounce in the polls, from 53% to 62% preference among registered voters.Gallup, Inc.
General election campaign
Getting an opponent