1976 United States presidential election

Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 2, 1976. The Democratic ticket of former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter and Minnesota senior senator Walter Mondale narrowly defeated the Republican ticket of incumbent president Gerald Ford and Kansas junior senator Bob Dole. This was the first presidential election since 1932 in which the incumbent was defeated, as well as the only one of the six presidential elections from 1968 to 1988 to have the Democratic Party ticket win. Ford ascended to the presidency when Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal, which badly damaged the Republican Party and its electoral prospects. Ford previously served as Nixon's second vice president after his first vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned in 1973 due to a bribery scandal. Ford promised to continue Nixon's political agenda and govern as a moderate Republican, causing considerable backlash from the conservative wing of his party. Ford narrowly prevailed against former California governor Ronald Reagan in the Republican primaries. Carter was unknown outside of his home state of Georgia at the start of the Democratic primaries, but he emerged as the front-runner after his victories in the first set of primaries. Campaigning as a political moderate within his own party and as a Washington outsider, Carter defeated numerous opponents to clinch the Democratic nomination. Ford pursued a "Rose Garden strategy" in which he sought to portray himself as an experienced leader focused on fulfilling his role as chief executive. On the other hand, Carter emphasized his status as a reformer who was "untainted" by Washington. Saddled with a poor economy, the fall of South Vietnam, and the political fallout from the Watergate scandal, including his unpopular pardon of Richard Nixon, Ford trailed by a wide margin in polls taken after Carter's formal nomination in July 1976. Ford's polling rebounded after a strong performance in the first presidential debate, and the race was close on election day. Carter won the election with 297 Electoral College votes and took 50 % of the popular vote. He carried several Midwestern and Northeastern states along with every state in the Deep South, becoming the first Democrat to accomplish this feat since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944. Carter's narrow victories in Ohio and Wisconsin, which carried a combined 36 electoral votes, were crucial to his win. Meanwhile, Ford swept the West Coast and Mountain states and took 48 % of the popular vote. Ford became the first president to have served without ever winning a national election as president or vice president. His loss to Carter was due in part to the backlash against Republican candidates nationwide in the wake of the Watergate scandal, a trend that became apparent in the 1974 elections.