1980: Chaos
At the outset of the 1980 primary season, polls and punditry predicted a tight Baker-Bush-Connally race. The state of the race was turned on its head, however, when relative unknown Frank Borman decisively won the Iowa caucuses. Conservatives had rallied to Borman as the inheritor of the Goldwater-Reagan legacy. Baker and Bush came in second and third respectively, while John Connally finished a humiliating fourth. The Texan subsequently left the race and endorsed Bush.
Howard Baker's strength in the South and Northeast made him the odds-on favourite to win the nomination. The Senate minority leader won big in New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary but he was beaten in Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts and Connecticut by the insurgent John Anderson, who had cobbled together a formidable coalition of liberal Republicans.
Anderson swept the Midwest, Borman carried the plains states (and his native state of Indiana), George Bush eked out wins in South Carolina and Texas, and Baker won a diverse number of Southern, Western, and northeastern states. Each candidate insisted that they had a legitimate claim to the nomination. It would soon be May and the field had not winnowed.
Finally, at the behest of his party, former President Ford reluctantly entered the race. Ford would win every contest from Michigan onward, going into the convention with enough delegates to make a strong case for his nomination. Ford was nominated on the third ballot, after Senator Baker released his delegates and endorsed the former president. In return, Baker was rewarded with the VP slot.
Not all are happy, however. John Anderson has teased an independent run and the conservative wing of the party is upset with Ford's selection of Baker for VP.