A sitting president with an extraordinarily high standing in public opinion polls, Reagan was nominated for a second term at the 1984 Republican convention without opposition. The Democratic nomination went to Walter Mondale of Minnesota, who had been vice president under Carter. Mondale electrified the country by choosing Representative Geraldine Ferraro of New York as his running mate. An Italian American and a Catholic, Ferraro was expected to appeal to conservative Democrats who had supported Reagan in 1980 and to win the votes of many Republican women.
Reagan began the campaign with several important advantages. He was especially popular among religious fundamentalists and other social conservatives, and these groups were increasingly vocal. President Nixon had spoken of a “silent majority.” By 1980 the kind of people he was referring to were no longer silent. Fundamentalist television preachers were almost all fervent Reaganites and the most successful of them were collecting tens of millions of dollars annually in contributions from viewers. One of these, the Reverend Jerry Falwell, founded the Moral Majority and set out to create a new political movement. “Americans are sick and tired of the way the amoral liberals are trying to corrupt our nation,” Falwell announced in 1979.
During the first Reagan administration, the Moral Majority had become a powerful political force. Falwell denounced drugs, the “coddling” of criminals, homosexuality, communism, and abortion, all things that Reagan also disliked. Falwell also disapproved of forced busing to integrate schools. In addition,
Success of the Republican "Southern Strategy" In 1968, Kevin M. Phillips, a key Nixon strategist, proposed a "southern strategy” to create an "emerging Republican majority.” Many doubted that the South, which had long been opposed to the party of Lincoln, could be won over. But in presidential elections from 1968 to 1988, far more southern counties voted Republican than Democratic.
States carried by Republicans in presidential elections, 1968-88
Held in every election I I Held in 5 out of 6 years ¦¦ Held in 4 out of 6 years Held in 3 out of 6 years I I Held in 2 out of 6 years Held only once in 6 years
Reagan favored government aid to private schools run by church groups, something dear to the Moral Majority despite the constitutional principle of separation of church and state.
Reagan’s support was also drawn from blue collar workers and white Southerners, constituencies that had been solidly Democratic during the New Deal and beyond. The president’s personality was another important plus—voters continued to admire his informal yet firm style and his stress on patriotism and other “traditional" virtues.
Most polls showed Reagan far in the lead when the campaign began, and this remained true throughout the contest. Nothing Mondale or Ferraro did or said affected the president’s popularity. Bad news, even his own mistakes, had so little effect on Reagan’s standing that people began to call him “the Teflon president.” On election day he got nearly 60 percent of the popular vote and lost only in Minnesota, Mondale’s home state, and in the District of Columbia. Reagan’s Electoral College margin was overwhelming, 525 to 13.
Of all the elements in the Democratic New Deal coalition, only African Americans, who voted solidly for Mondale, remained loyal. The Democratic strategy of nominating a woman for vice president was a failure; far more women voted for Reagan than for the Mondale-Ferraro ticket.
Reagan’s triumph, like the two landslide victories of Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s, was a personal one. The Republicans made only minor gains in the House of Representatives and actually lost two seats in the Senate.
World History
