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| Elections in Ohio |
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The 1980 United States presidential election in Ohio took place on November 4, 1980. All 50 states and The District of Columbia were part of the 1980 United States presidential election. State voters chose 25 electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
Because of Ohio's long-time bellwether status, Carter and Reagan campaigned heavily in the state from the start of the presidential primaries.[1] At the beginning of the campaign, it was clear that inflation and the Iranian hostage crisis were cutting heavily into Carter's popularity in the industrial areas of the state,[2] although Reagan was not viewed warmly by the state's electorate either.[3]
Despite the coldness with which the incumbent President was received on his first visit to Columbus, Carter did gain a critical victory over challenger Ted Kennedy in Ohio's presidential primary on June 4, owing to his dominance of Ohio's heavily Appalachian rural counties[4] plus the endorsement of both Buckeye State Senator John Glenn[5] and Cleveland's Plain Dealer newspaper.[6]
In the earliest polls after the nominations were settled, Reagan was slightly ahead of Carter,[7] and from midsummer the GOP nominee targeted Ohio as part of his strategy of appealing to industrial workers in the Northeast and Great Lakes region.[8] Ohio gained further attention from a court case that allowed independent candidate and former Republican rival to Reagan John B. Anderson to be on the state's ballot,[9] but Reagan continued his strategy of seeking the support of Ohio's industrial workers during the remainder of the summer.[10] However, after the challenger being ahead for the first half of the fall – although never by an irreversible margin – by mid-October Ohio was seen as close because Reagan was not gaining so much support from industrial workers as he had hoped in August,[11] with voters simply debating “which candidate they liked least”.[12] However, by the beginning of November, Ohio was viewed as the most problematic of the three “key” Midwestern states[a] for Carter's re-election battle, as he was only seventy-five thousand votes ahead in Cuyahoga County, which he had won by over 93,000 votes in his 11,000-vote statewide triumph four years previously.[13] The Equal Rights Amendment and abortion were also seen as severely handicapping Carter in the Southern-leaning Appalachian counties where he had done well in 1976.[13]
Ohio was won by former California Governor Ronald Reagan (R) by 11%.[14] Ohio voted very close to the nation for both Carter and Reagan, although Anderson was 0.7% below his national percentage. Reagan was the first Republican since Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 to carry heavily populated Lucas County.[15]
- ^ Weisman, Steven R.; ‘Carter and Reagan 'Debate' in Ohio, Six Blocks Apart: Two Images of the U.S.’; The New York Times Special, May 29, 1980, p. A1
- ^ Schellhardt, Timothy D.; ‘Midwest Mood: Carter's Support Slides In a Blue-Collar Town That Backed Him in ‘76’; Wall Street Journal, June 2, 1980, p. 1
- ^ Smith, Terence; ‘Visits by Carter and Reagan to Put Ohio's Capital on the Political Map: Little Enthusiasm for Candidates – “Turned His Back on the State”’; New York Times Special, May 29, 1980. p. B6
- ^ Nyhan, David and Black, Chris; ‘Carter Is Over Top; Kennedy Will Fight On – Ohio to President; N.J. to Senator; California Close’; The Boston Globe, June 4, 1980, p. 1
- ^ ‘Campaign Report: Carter Gets Endorsement From Senator Glenn of Ohio’; The New York Times, May 22, 1980, p. B8
- ^ ‘Campaign Report: Kennedy Warns of Threats Of Unrest in Inner Cities; Carter and Reagan Lead In Poll of Jersey Residents; Cleveland Plain Dealer Endorses Carter and Reagan’; The New York Times, May 26, 1980, p. A13
- ^ ‘Reagan Leads, Poll Indicates’; The Boston Globe, June 16, 1980, p. 1
- ^ Sperling, Godfrey, Jr.; ‘How Reagan plans to beat Carter in November; “Northeast strategy” targets Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, banks on big 'blue collar' vote’; The Christian Science Monitor, July 16, 1980
- ^ ‘Campaign Report: Anderson Wins Court Battle To Be on the Ohio Ballot’; The New York Times, July 18, 1980, p. A7
- ^ Broder, David S. ‘Reagan, Citing 'the Carter Depression,' Courts Labor: Decrying 'the Carter Depression,' Reagan Courts Support of Labor’; The Washington Post, August 28, 1980, p. A1
- ^ Clymer, Adam; ‘Ohio Race Expected to Be Close As Labor Mobilizes for President’; New York Times Special, October 16, 1980, p. A1
- ^ Hunt, Albert R.; ‘Buckeye Ambivalence: In Pivotal Ohio, With Reagan Slightly Ahead, Voters Debate Which Candidate They Like Least’; The Wall Street Journal, October 9, 1098. p. 48
- ^ a b Healy, Robert L.; ‘Ohio, Mich, and Illinois may decide the election’; The Boston Globe, November 1, 1980, p. 1
- ^ "1980 Presidential General Election Results – Ohio". uselectionatlas.org.
- ^ Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, pp. 276-280 ISBN 0786422173
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