Was Gerald Ford's 1976 performance in the general election actually impressive?

[President Johnson]

Given all circumstances and fundamentals in the 1976 election, is it fair to say that Gerald Ford's performance in the general election was actually extremely impressive?

Consider that was an an unelected president that was never even elected vice president on a national ticket. He came into office after one of the most significant scandals in American political history, pardoned Nixon (which was extremely controversial) had strong primary challenge that almost succeeded at an open convention, yet he managed to lose by only two points and still cleared 240 electoral votes while taking 27 states outright. Ford trailed by double digits in summer and made up a lot of ground over the fall just to fall short by a fraction. Heck, if the campaign went on for another week or two or he just didn't do the "no Soviet domination" gaffe, he might have won. Democrats also got lucky with Carter appealing to Southern voters. I guess Ford could have beaten most other Democratic candidates.

It's a disappointment Republicans didn't draft him in 1980 again. I guess he would have won a bigger popular vote victory than Reagan and still around 400 electoral votes since Anderson wouldn't have run with Ford leading the Republican ticket (and presumably a conservative running mate). Also, Reagan would never have happened, though I'm skeptical the conservative power taking in the Republican could have been prevented. I guess the inevitable would just have been delayed, though that's another topic to discuss.

Thoughts?

[President Johnson]

Very much so considering where he started. Good chance he would have won if the race went on a little longer. The same is true for Humphrey in 1968 by the way.

Agreed. Or if Johnson just leaked information that Nixon was sabotaging the peace talks. Something that was actually worse than Watergate.

[President Johnson]

Very much so considering where he started. Good chance he would have won if the race went on a little longer. The same is true for Humphrey in 1968 by the way.

Agreed. Or if Johnson just leaked information that Nixon was sabotaging the peace talks. Something that was actually worse than Watergate.

That was partly Humphrey's fault. He advised Johnson not to release it, thinking he already had the election in the bag by that point. He would later admit it was his biggest regret.

From what I read about the Humphrey campaign was that they were never confident they would win and viewed it as a somewhat uphill battle right until the end.  They were behind in polling in Texas and Pennsylvania the whole time, which they ended up winning.

My source:

Johnson did make information available to Humphrey, but at this point Humphrey thought he was going to win the election, so he did not reveal the information to the public. Humphrey later regretted this as a mistake.

For most of the time I actually thought Johnson refrained because he feared Nixon would still win and enter office very damaged.

But I'm sure LBJ would have leaked it, if he himself was the candidate. He wasn't a guy that was playing softball.