Connecticut was won by former California GovernorRonald Reagan by 10 points.[2]President of the United States Jimmy Carter failed to gain reelection against Reagan. Connecticut election results reflect the Republican Party's re-consolidation under what is popularly called the "Reagan Revolution,"[3] which sounded overwhelming conservative electoral victories across the United States.
The already embattled incumbent Democratic president Carter was hurt in the state by the strong third party candidacy of John Anderson, a liberal Republican Congressman who ran in 1980 as an independent after failing to win the Republican Party's own presidential nomination. Anderson proved very popular with liberal and moderate voters in New England who normally leaned Democratic but were dissatisfied with the policies of the Carter Administration and viewed Reagan as too far to the right. New England overall would prove to be Anderson's strongest region in the nation, with all 6 New England states giving double-digit percentages to Anderson. In fact, Connecticut would prove to be Anderson's fifth strongest state in the nation after Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island and New Hampshire. His 12.22% of the vote in the state was nearly double the 6.61% he got nationwide.[4]
Connecticut did however, vote approximately 0.1% more Democratic than the national average.
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