Reagan in 1976 was seen by a lot of people as a scary right wing radical war monger. A sort of Goldwater 2.0 who wanted to end social security and Medicaid. Remember how many people were terrified by the idea of Reagan having control of the nuclear arsenal? Reagan could help Ford in the South and West but then hurt him in the Midwest and Northeast. He would not be guaranteed to help Ford win.
I sure do remember. Having grown up in conservative blue collar Macomb, MI, I was a fresh 18 y/o voter in Cambridge, MA (MIT) in the fall of '84. Especially having seen the movie "Dreamscape", and being reminded daily of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Doomsday clock (four minutes till midnight!), I got the sense from the majority of those around me (Cambridge went 76.2% for Mondale) that a Reagan victory was sure to mean nuclear holocaust, not to mention war on the poor. Most Americans outside my new home city didn't buy it, though, which helped Reagan win a landslide.
