General Discussion

Or were they determined to humiliate the incumbent American President regardless.

Carter was already facing an uphill battle for re-election because of the economy, which had both high inflation and unemployment. And Rick Perlstein’s book “Reaganland” points out that of voters in the 1980 election who had the hostages in Iran as a top issue, around two-thirds of them voted for Carter.

I really think Reagan won because of the bad economy, along the white backlash in Northern cities focused on “law and order” and hostility to civil rights in the South, as well as the mobilization of the white evangelical “Moral Majority.” To the extent that foreign policy played a role in his victory, it was the perception that he was tougher on the Soviet Union than Carter. I’m not convinced that the hostages in Iran were that important compared with these other issues.