The United States presidential election of 1976 followed the resignation of President Richard Nixon in the wake of the Watergate scandal. It favored the relatively unknown former governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, the Democratic candidate over the incumbent President Gerald Ford, the Republican candidate. Ford was saddled with a slow economy and paid a political price for his pardon of Nixon, although he did carry a majority of the states. Carter, running as a Washington outsider and reformer, won a narrow victory. He was the first president elected from the Deep South since Zachary Taylor in 1848.
Since 1976, no Democratic candidate has managed to match or better Carter's electoral performance in the American South.
Following the October 21, 2012, death of 1972 Democratic Party nominee George McGovern, this is now the earliest United States presidential election where one of the two major candidates is still living, that being the winning candidate Jimmy Carter, who is 88 years old.
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states and/or presidential:
“When Mr. Apollinax visited the United States
His laughter tinkled among the teacups.
I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch-trees,
And of Priapus in the shrubbery
Gaping at the lady in the swing.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Prior to the meeting, there was a prayer. In general, in the United States there was always praying.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“On the whole, the great success of marriage in the States is due partly to the fact that no American man is ever idle, and partly to the fact that no American wife is considered responsible for the quality of her husband’s dinners.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Mr. Roosevelt, this is my principal request—it is almost the last request I shall ever make of anybody. Before you leave the presidential chair, recommend Congress to submit to the Legislatures a Constitutional Amendment which will enfranchise women, and thus take your place in history with Lincoln, the great emancipator. I beg of you not to close your term of office without doing this.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)