Ronald Reagan Becomes the Republican Candidate for the 1980 Presidential Election

Ronald Reagan, the 33rd Governor of California, announced his candidacy for President of the United States in New York City on November 13, 1979. On July 17, 1980, he became the nominee of the Republican Party for the 1980 presidential election. After receiving the Republican nomination, he selected one of his primary opponents, George H. W. Bush, to be his running mate.

On November 4, 1980, Reagan carried 44 states with 489 electoral votes to win the election. Jimmy Carter, the incumbent president, carried six states (and Washington, D.C.) with 49 electoral votes. Reagan won 50.7 percent of the popular vote while Carter took 41 percent, and Independent John B. Anderson (a liberal Republican) received 6.7 percent. Reagan's constitutional election to the office was completed with the meeting of the Electoral College on December 15, 1980[4] and with the subsequent certification of the college's vote by Joint Session of the United States Congress on January 6, 1981. Based on the results of the electoral vote count, Ronald Reagan was declared the elected-President of the United States and George H. W. Bush was declared officially as the elected-Vice President of the United States in the 1980 presidential election.

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End of the primaries

On May 20, 1980, after the Michigan and Oregon primaries, Ronald Reagan secured enough delegates to clinch the nomination for the Republican Party. His opponent in the general election, incumbent President Jimmy Carter, passed the delegate threshold to become the presumptive nominee of his party on June 3. On May 26, George H. W. Bush, Reagan's remaining opponent in the quest for the Republican nomination, conceded defeat and urged his supporters to back Reagan.

Vice Presidential selection

Who would be Ronald Reagan's vice presidential running mate had been a subject of speculation since the end of the primaries. When former President Gerald Ford revealed in a CBS interview with Walter Cronkite that he was se...