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The 1984 Election: The Irrelevance of the Campaign

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2022

Kathleen A. Frankovic
Kathleen A. Frankovic*
Affiliation:
CBS News
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Extract

In 1948, pollsters and journalists learned that campaigns mattered. In 1984, the lesson may be that sometimes campaigns may not matter at all. The major question for analysis of this election, therefore, is not what did Ronald Reagan do to insure victory, but why did anyone think Ronald Reagan could lose?

This year is an awkward year for analysis for other reasons as well. This was a landslide election; landslides tend to be massive rejections of one candidate or massive affirmations of the winner's policies or performance. This year, the voters were clear in their approval of Ronald Reagan's economic programs. They were less clear in their support for increased spending on defense or in support of the Reagan social agenda. Straightforward analysis of the election provides indications of somewhat increased confidence in government and the prevalence of economic issues dominating the reasons for candidate support. The election seems a mandate for continued economic success, with little concern for how that is achieved. The groups who voted against Ronald Reagan were those who did not think they benefited from administration policies—blacks, Hispanics, and the poor—as well as self-described liberals and the traditional supporters of American liberalism, Jews.

Type
The 1984 U.S. Elections
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , Winter 1985 , pp. 39 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1985

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References

1 Unless otherwise indicated in the text, data cited in this article derive from CBS News/New York Times polls.

2 Responses to these kinds of questions, which in the exit poll situation need to be closed ended, are certainly affected by the number of responses allowed, and the wording of the question. The CBS News/New York Times national exit poll asked voters to indicate which two of a list of nine items mattered in deciding how they would vote. The question was, “Which of these factors mattered most?” All of the items given had to do with candidate characteristics or campaign events. No issues were included in that list. The ABC News Election Day poll put no restrictions on the number of items that a respondent could cite. Eleven percent of those respondents checked “Mondale nominating a woman” as a reason for their vote. The presidential preference of those individuals was similar to that obtained by CBS News and The Times.

3 Lyndon Johnson may be credited with ensuring that Texas voted for John Kennedy in 1960; without Texas' electoral votes, however, Kennedy would have been elected anyway.

4 “And Tyler, Too,” Public Opinion 7, April/May 1984, 52–54.