Why did Carter so well in the South in 1980?

[Sir Mohamed]

Although he lost in a landslide nationwide, Jimmy Carter still came close to winning lots of southern states in 1980. He even overperformed Bill Clinton significantly. I know that there was the regional factor that gave him the 1976 election, but I always believed that Reagan was a very good fit for the South (especially compared to GOP types like Ford or HW pre-1988). Therefore, it's surprising that Reagan just barely managed to win these states despite a nationwide landslide. And John Anderson probably cost Carter more votes than Reagan.

And if you flip all states Reagan carried with less than 50%, Carter wins the election with this map (Carter at 284 EVs):

[Mr. Smith]

You spelled it out.

Also, lots of evangelicals were still wary of Reagan-the-Divorced on a cultural level. And that's without factoring in Carter's scare tactics [which were correct mostly] on entitlement reforms.

I'm also sure there were some paleocons not happy with Reagan's hawkishness.

[darklordoftech]

Carter was an evangelical from the south while Reagan was a divorced actor.

Nonetheless, I'm sure the south preferred Reagan over Ford and HW.

[RINO Tom]

If you look at the county maps, Reagan eeked out wins by running up margins in the metro areas; in a lot of Southern states, he got clobbered in the rural areas.  Most "old school Southern Democrats" were still very comfortable with Carter and stuck with him over a California Republican.  The fact that this happened in 1980 really isn't that surprising, IMO.

[Fuzzy Bear]

In the book "Wallace", by Marshall Frady, Gov. George Wallace was asked about his conservatism.  His response was, "What'cha mean, now?" and emphasized that he wasn't "one of those ultraconservatives.  They're just interested about money."  Wallace then went on to talk about his spending proposals for schools and roads and hospitals, and said of these projects, "That's helpin' foks!".  

In that same book, there was a quote from one of Wallace's advisers.  I don't remember which one, but the adviser was speaking about the Alabama electorate swinging to Goldwater in 1964.  The adviser said something to the effect that Alabamians didn't really like Goldwater; he just voted against the Civil Rights bill and they returned the favor by voting for Goldwater.  There was no hankering for the kind of economic conservatism Goldwater proposed; much of the South's prosperity at that time was due to the actions of the Federal Government.  (This would not be as true in 1980 as it was in 1964.)

Carter was not perceived as a liberal by most Southern voters, and there were many Southerners whose politics were, quite frankly, much like mine; a conservative social outlook, advocating a strong national defense (while not being war enthusiasts), but with a liberal outlook on economic policy.  That, and he was one of them.  The Southern states he did the worst in were oil states (TX, LA) and states with significant influx of northerners (FL, VA).  

Carter was never the hopeless underdog that he seemed to be during that campaign; all of the fatal slippage came in the last week.  He finished poorly.  I firmly believe that if Carter had debated both Reagan AND Anderson, he would have avoided what happened in the end, and would have eked it out.  

[RINO Tom]

In the book "Wallace", by Marshall Frady, Gov. George Wallace was asked about his conservatism.  His response was, "What'cha mean, now?" and emphasized that he wasn't "one of those ultraconservatives.  They're just interested about money."  Wallace then went on to talk about his spending proposals for schools and roads and hospitals, and said of these projects, "That's helpin' foks!".  

In that same book, there was a quote from one of Wallace's advisers.  I don't remember which one, but the adviser was speaking about the Alabama electorate swinging to Goldwater in 1964.  The adviser said something to the effect that Alabamians didn't really like Goldwater; he just voted against the Civil Rights bill and they returned the favor by voting for Goldwater.  There was no hankering for the kind of economic conservatism Goldwater proposed; much of the South's prosperity at that time was due to the actions of the Federal Government.  (This would not be as true in 1980 as it was in 1964.)

Carter was not perceived as a liberal by most Southern voters, and there were many Southerners whose politics were, quite frankly, much like mine; a conservative social outlook, advocating a strong national defense (while not being war enthusiasts), but with a liberal outlook on economic policy.  That, and he was one of them.  The Southern states he did the worst in were oil states (TX, LA) and states with significant influx of northerners (FL, VA).  

Carter was never the hopeless underdog that he seemed to be during that campaign; all of the fatal slippage came in the last week.  He finished poorly.  I firmly believe that if Carter had debated both Reagan AND Anderson, he would have avoided what happened in the end, and would have eked it out.

Good post.  Obviously, "conservative" and "liberal" can mean totally different things depending on the situation.  Someone's economic conservatism (in favor of less regulation and lower taxes, let's say) won't necessarily correlate to his/her social conservatism (pro-life and very pro-gun, let's say), and neither will NECESSARILY correlate to his/her cultural conservatism (preference for tradition and religious, let's say).  I'd argue our "one size fits all" definitions of "conservative" and "liberal" didn't really start to form until Buckley came around.

[Sumner 1868]

Blacks detested Reagan. And that's about it.

[Podgy the Bear]

It's all relative--Carter dropped considerably in the South almost as in other parts of the country.  His  numbers were so strong in 1976 (states like Arkansas went for him by a near 2:1 margin, and he won Tennessee by 13 points).

It's true that the black vote increased in the rural South in the 1970s.  And in some states, the white vote had already been substantially Republican by then.  It helps to explain why Mississippi (and Louisiana to a lesser extent) didn't swing heavily against Carter in 1980 (though just enough to lose both states).   

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

You could spin it the other way....a Republican candidate with no ties to the South (except for a Texas runningmate that didn't come off as overly Texan) won all but one southern state (even if several of them were close) over a Democratic candidate with almost exclusive ties to the South at a time when Democrats were still very dominant in the region below the presidential level.

[PoliticalShelter]

You could argue 1980 was symbolic in that it was the election where the New South was now more electorally powerful than the Old South.

[Arbitrage1980]

Carter was despised by the Congressional Democrats because he was too moderate, hence why Ted Kennedy opposed him in the 1980 Democratic primary.  He most likely would have lost if not for the Iranian hostage crisis.

More importantly, the liberal story about the "Southern Strategy" is deeply flawed. In their narrative, the South switched en masse to the GOP once they opposed civil rights and became the de facto racist party. The data does not support this. The areas of the South in which the GOP first made headwinds were the affluent educated suburbs such as Dallas, Houston, Fairfax County, etc. The rural areas did not become solid GOP until the post-Reagan era, especially after the 1994 Gingrich revolution. The re-alignment took several decades.

[darklordoftech]

Carter wasn't exactly pro-choice, and AIDS hadn't been discovered yet.