1980: Anderson's highest percentage in polls?

[Insula Dei]

Anyone happens to know this?

[tpfkaw]

[Insula Dei]

Thanks.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

it looks like Anderson's high level of support in the Spring/ early Summer bled first toward Reagan, and then toward Carter.

[Dr. Cynic]

Anderson didn't exactly run a great campaign though. He spent a lot of time fighting with Ed Clark over which of them should withdraw, ultimately neither did.

[Phony Moderate]

I wonder which states (if any) Anderson would have won with 24% of the national popular vote.

[Verily]

I wonder which states (if any) Anderson would have won with 24% of the national popular vote.

Assuming a UNS and that he took equally from Carter and Reagan (both almost certainly wrong), he would have barely won Massachusetts in a very tight three-way race. Nowhere else, although he would have been within striking distance of Reagan in Connecticut, Maine and Vermont, of Carter in Rhode Island, and in a distant second behind Reagan in New Hampshire.

[hcallega]

If the election was on the day where Anderson was at his best in the polls:

Carter/Mondale (D) 38%, 319 EVs
Reagan/Bush (R) 35%, 216 EVs
Anderson/Lucey (I) 26%, 3 EVs
Clark/Koch (L) 1%

[Antonio the Sixth]

Reagan would have been quite pissed off to lose so badly against an opponent not even breaking 40%...

[tpfkaw]

If we weight the swing so that it is the average of a UNS of 17.39 and a multiplication of the vote by 3.63 in each state, and assume that he would have taken from Carter by a 70-30 margin (90-10 in D.C.), then here are the results:

Reagan - 502
Anderson - 21
Carter - 15

[Fuzzybigfoot]

Did Anderson have any states going his way, during his peak in the polls?  Like Vermont or somewhere in the East?  Because it would be surprising for him to be at 24% and not be competitive or maybe leading in certain states.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Did Anderson have any states going his way, during his peak in the polls?  Like Vermont or somewhere in the East?  Because it would be surprising for him to be at 24% and not be competitive or maybe leading in certain states.

Well, in 1992 Perot won 19% of the vote, and in his best State, Maine, he was 10 points behind Clinton. It's really hard for a third party to win any state nowadays, whereas in the pas geographical appeal allowed to cnadidates with an inferior score (Weaver, or later thurmond) to win some states.

[tpfkaw]

Did Anderson have any states going his way, during his peak in the polls?  Like Vermont or somewhere in the East?  Because it would be surprising for him to be at 24% and not be competitive or maybe leading in certain states.

Well, in 1992 Perot won 19% of the vote, and in his best State, Maine, he was 10 points behind Clinton. It's really hard for a third party to win any state nowadays, whereas in the pas geographical appeal allowed to cnadidates with an inferior score (Weaver, or later thurmond) to win some states.

Well, recent third-party candidates have tended to attempt a 50-state strategy, as opposed to a regional strategy.  (George Wallace is interesting because he arguably did both).

[bgwah]

Oh, very interesting. I decided to play around with the numbers and base a map off Anderson's peak, which was 35-33-24. I left Clark/Other at 1.6%, to get the following nationwide percentages:

37.42% Carter (D)
35.29% Reagan (R)
25.66% Anderson (I)
1.62% other

The adjusted state numbers (using lazy math but it's good enough ) ends up like this:

Electoral college:
279 Carter
196 Reagan
63 Anderson

Carter narrowly wins a majority of the electoral college.

[tpfkaw]

My take, using slightly less lazy math:

If we weight the swing so that it is the average of a UNS of 17.39 and a multiplication of the vote by 3.63 in each state, and assume that he would have taken from Carter by a 70-30 margin (90-10 in D.C.), then here are the results:

Reagan - 502
Anderson - 21
Carter - 15

[bgwah]

Eh, that seems slightly more lazy to me.

[bgwah]

Maybe I'm just stupid, but it is hard for me to see a higher Anderson percentage winning Carter reelection. I thought that anderson was supposed to hurt Carter.

I based my map off the polling someone posted. I think we need to consider two factors:

1) Anderson peaked earlier in the campaign season, when Carter was still leading. My map reflects that.
2) Earlier on, much of Anderson's support appeared to be coming from Republicans. It appears they bled disproportionately to Reagan as the campaign season went on, leaving the actual Anderson voters on election day draining from Carter disproportionately. My map does not reflect that.