1976 Presidential election: why was it so close? (user search)
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  1976 Presidential election: why was it so close? (search mode)
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Author Topic: 1976 Presidential election: why was it so close?  (Read 2307 times)
Alben Barkley
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« on: November 22, 2020, 11:52:04 PM »


Can’t believe how long it took to get to the correct answer in this thread.
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Alben Barkley
KYWildman
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Posts: 19,282
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Political Matrix
E: -2.97, S: -5.74

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« Reply #1 on: November 23, 2020, 09:10:00 PM »


As a born-again Southern Baptist, Carter appealed to Southern evangelicals.

Then, he did an interview with Playboy, where he admitted to having "lust in his heart" for women other than his wife.

The thing is he was just quoting Jesus himself in saying no man is free from that, and was basically prodded into saying it by the interviewer. People who actually understand the Bible and the context of that line should have known there was no issue with what he said. But not just that line, also other parts of the Playboy interview (including bashing LBJ) and just doing the interview at all hurt his image somewhat as morally upright and honest, however unfairly. It was a turning point as it was one of the first things that made people raise their eyebrows and wonder if Carter was up to the job. Seems incredibly trivial and dumb by today’s standards, of course, but the impact at the time is undeniable.
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Alben Barkley
KYWildman
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*****
Posts: 19,282
United States


Political Matrix
E: -2.97, S: -5.74

P P
« Reply #2 on: November 23, 2020, 09:22:21 PM »


Well, most Southern conservatives still voted for Carter. I doubt he would have won much bigger without the incident.

Also crazy to think about the "scandals" of the early days now compared Trump. Just like Poppy dared to check his watch during a debate.

??

Assuming you are referring to White Southern conservatives only here... Carter very likely lost the non-Hispanic White Southern vote in 1976, and considering that some White liberals existed... I have to give it a no.

At the very least, Ford won whites in Virginia, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Texas. Probably Florida too.

He definitely won them in Florida and Louisiana. And he probably did in Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina as well.

Yup, this has been discussed before on this board. Carter apparently lost the white vote in the South, despite winning nearly all the counties. In reality, I think there should be a footnote here, as Carter did pretty damn well with rural whites — this was offset by losing badly in the suburbs.
https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=392676

It was “discussed” but no one making that claim actually provided any evidence whatsoever Carter lost the white vote in the South. I find that very hard, almost impossible frankly, to believe. He won most Southern states by extremely decisive margins, several in the double digits, that just wouldn’t be possible if he wasn’t winning whites. Especially since blacks weren’t voting 10% or less for Republicans at the time, closer to 20%. And especially since states like AR, KY, TN, WV where he won easily don’t even have that many non-whites, relatively speaking, and had an even smaller non-white population at the time. Plus he racked up huge margins in the same extremely white counties where Donald Trump racked up similar margins today.

Anyway, as for some actual data, Roper Center has exit polls from 1976 which show a few things of note:

1. Ford won whites for the country as a whole, but only 52-48.

2. Carter’s best region was the South, 54-46.

3. Blacks voted 17% for Ford.

Add it all up and I don’t see how it’s possible Carter lost Southern whites. Maybe in some states like VA, OK, MS, but even then pretty narrowly. It was four years later when he collapsed with evangelical Southern whites (his own demographic ironically) who largely abandoned him for Reagan. But even then, he kept it closer in many of these states than any Democrat has since. And he collapsed much harder in states like AR than he did in states like MS, where he seems to have not done as well with whites in the first place.
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Alben Barkley
KYWildman
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*****
Posts: 19,282
United States


Political Matrix
E: -2.97, S: -5.74

P P
« Reply #3 on: November 25, 2020, 10:20:38 PM »

I’m still not buying it. It just doesn’t add up. It would be like claiming Joe Biden won the white vote in Georgia this year because he did well in the Atlanta suburbs, even though he got absolutely trounced in the white rural areas of the state. The situation was inverted in the South in 1976 (outside of GA itself of course, where Carter won every county and very obviously won the white vote). I just don’t see how it’s mathematically possible to get those massive rural margins in every Southern state, lose suburbs relatively narrowly, and yet somehow lose the white vote overall. It does not make sense. Maybe it does depend on how broadly you define “the South,” maybe there were enough whites in Dallas or something voting against Carter that it skews things when Texas is included. But number one I still don’t see how it makes sense (Biden won Dallas by more, still lost whites in Texas and the South), and number two even if technically true, it doesn’t really paint an accurate picture of how the stereotypical Southern white voter was voting in 1976. Because that absolutely was for Carter.

And as for the exit polls, well we have different ones saying different things, it’s not clear how reliable they were back then, and again it largely comes down to how you define “the South” which is not consistently agreed upon. All I know for sure, based on the actual results, is that Carter dominated in rural white Southern counties, and (GA excepted) he basically did better in a Southern state the whiter it was. So it just makes absolutely no sense how he could lose Southern whites.
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