I didn't vote for Jimmy Carter in 1976.

[milestogo]

It was my first time voting and I was excited about it. I got registered at my college address. I found out where my polling place was. When I got the ballot in front of me there was a long list of names I was unfamiliar with. (In college I didn't watch much television or read the newspaper.)

At the top of the ballot were Ford and Carter. I voted for Gerald Ford. My reasoning was - he's already been president, so he knows how to be president.

When I went back to the dorm people were talking about voting for Carter. They said some really good things. So I reached for my coat and said I've got to go back. I thought I could go back and change my vote to Carter. I found out I couldn't.

If I had done 5 minutes of research - or made a phone call to my parents - I would have voted for Carter. But I didn't. So I was one of those young, dumb, uninformed voters. There are a lot of people out there who voted for Trump this year for the simple reason that they knew the name. It happens. Fortunately Carter won anyway.

In 1980 when Carter lost to Reagan I cried my eyes out. I have never voted for any Republican ever again.

[NewHendoLib]

1. Carter was my first vote in a presidential election

I felt so pleased!

[phylny]

30. Me too!

I did it via absentee ballot.

[yliza]

39. Same here

I voted for him in both 1976 and 1980. The Carter bashing that ensued after his loss in 1980 still makes me sick to my stomach. It didn’t stop until recently.

[IzzaNuDay]

52. Me too!

And since I was a student in the DMV, I went to the inauguration parade. it was epic when Jimmy and his family walked the parade route. I didn’t see them though.

[redwitch]

56. My first presidential pick too.

I have never regretted it.

[keithbvadu2]

2. I was wrong about Jimmy Carter. I figured he was just another Christian phony running for President.

I was wrong about Jimmy Carter. I figured he was just another Christian phony running for President.
There are so few genuine Christians.

The public face of Christianity in America today is Trump's Christians/evangelicals.

[Ritabert]

3. Carter was the 2nd time I voted for a Democrat for President

And I've never deviated from that. I always vote Democratic.

[SheltieLover]

4. You learned from your mistake.

More than we can say for uneducable deplorables.

[Mister Ed]

5. Your story illustrates your important point: that low-information voters decide the election. n/t

[milestogo]

14. I don't know what percentage of people are low-information voters

but I suspect its high. And the percentage of bad-information voters is really high.

[CrispyQ]

6. You were young & learned a valuable lesson.

Being uninformed isn't the same as being misinformed & back then being uninformed was more the problem. There wasn't the outright lying by "news" agencies like today. There were newspapers galore & sure many had a slant on stories, but not deliberate lies or deletion of facts like today. I worry that today's misinformed voters will just continue to be misinformed voters, using sources that validate their world views.

I'm all for cable not being regulated with one exception. There should be qualifications & requirements to call yourself a news agency. Lying isn't one of them. Not reporting the facts is another.

[Swede]

9. Tombstone pizza on the way.

nt

[GP6971]

58. Well Hello again!! I'll be sending you our

new DU pizza menu for 2025. Please choose carefully!!

[IbogaProject]

10. Which Clinton, which election?

Your post raises more questions than answers.

They said they vited for Bill C in 92 and skipped 96, so I think that was their mistake.

[ThePartyThatListens]

8. I didn't vote for Carter either

As that was the year I was born.

[Catbird]

11. No vote for Carter thanks to Virginia which would not allow me to register under my name

I didn't vote for Jimmy Carter because I was living in Virginia at the time. The state did not recognize a common law name change from another state so would not register me. When I got married I took my husband's surname and then later changed it back even though we were still married. I moved to Virginia with all my documents in the correct name. This was not good enough for rural conservative Virginia.

[FakeNoose]

48. It's puzzling that this happened to you

You should have been able to show a birth certificate and a drivers license, both in your maiden name, and that should have been enough proof of ID. Whether a person is married, or changed their name through marriage, shouldn't enter into it.

[IbogaProject]

13. I was registered GOP for 20 years

Never even once voted for that mess. NJ used to have crossover voting in the primaries and I said GOP spring '88 and went and voted for Jessie Jackson since he sounded most progressive of the Dems.

[LeftInTX]

15. Same here! My parents were GOP and I personally liked Ford anyway. I also didn't trust southern Baptists.

It was also my first election. I was a sophomore. My friends were voting for Carter. I was pretty much apolitical in college anyway, but was older and wiser in 1980. I voted for Carter on election day 1980. When I was standing in line, I heard that Reagan won. I just shrugged my shoulders hoping he wouldn't be "that bad".....I felt like I do now. I was bummed.

[milestogo]

16. By then I was out of college and working at another university-

On election night 1980 they were playing a free movie:

It stars a couple of monkeys.

[LeftInTX]

17. Ha! Reagan came to my campus in Jan 1976. A few of my friends went and protested.

A gorilla suit was involved, so were tomatoes and eggs. The protest made national news. My friends were telling me how bad he was and how he was another Barry Goldwater. When he emerged four years later, I was disgusted. I thought those days were behind us.

[Polybius]

20. One radio host said it best on why Reagan was able to win win while Goldwater couldn't

He said Goldwater represented conservatism with a snarl, while Reagan did it with a smile. He was way, way better in front of the camera than Goldwater, and a better salesman.

I was a small child when Reagan won in 1980, but remember my mom being very upset and saying "I don't understand it." But 1984, she was all-in for Reagan.

[LeftInTX]

22. Reagan always seemed fake to me. Goldwater was scary looking to this third grader.

[milestogo]

23. Reagan was incomprehensible to me.

I think he was the first non-politician who ran for president, and a lot of people didn't like it. Then came TFG.

[Midwestern Democrat]

50. Reagan was a much more substantial figure in 1980 than Trump was in 2016. Reagan had been the Governor of California

for two terms and was the leading figure of the conservative wing of the Republican party since at least 1968 - he would have won the nomination in 1976 had it been an open race with no sitting president in the fold.

[milestogo]

53. You're right.

I forgot all that. Being from the midwest people saw him more as an actor. And a lot of older women thought he was a heartthrob.

[3catwoman3]

27. He didn't just seem fake...

...he was fake. Z-list (not a typo) actor playing his biggest role.

I detested him.

[ShazzieB]

32. Thanks for this!

I've heard about this movie all my life but never saw the trailer before. That was pretty funny.

Reagan, whose name the voice over mispronounced as REEgan (as in REEK? ) was quite good-looking back then. Too bad he 1) got elected potus, and 2) turned out to be such a dick.

Here's a piece of of personal trivia: my sister's name was Diana Lynn (Lastname). My mom swore she did not deliberately name her after that actress, but I'm sure sure Mom had heard of her, and the name was probably lodged in her subconscious. Whatever, I think it's a pretty name.

[milestogo]

37. Oh thats funny

I've never watched the movie, but when I saw this movie playing on election night, I thought it was a bold choice. Smart school with a lot of people who thought Reagan was a joke!

[Polybius]

18. Don't feel bad, I voted for Dole because he was a war hero and my mom said "he looks like a President"

Ahh, to be young again...

[Danmel]

19. My first Presidential election was in 1980

I turned 18 in 1978. I voted for Carter and was devastated when NY went for Reagan.
Didn't vote for a winning presidential candidate until 1992.

[Sogo]

21. Look at the electoral map:

The entire South voted for Carter!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_United_States_presidential_election

[Dem4life1970]

34. Yes, that 1976 electoral map is shocking!

[LetMyPeopleVote]

24. Jimmy Carter was my first vote

I was in college and had to go off campus to vote. I was in law school when Jimmy Carter lost to reagan. I remember being very upset.

[Mossfern]

25. The first time I voted was in 1972 for McGovern

I had been a McCarthy supporter in 1968 but was unable to vote because I was 20 years old.
I was so disgusted when Nixon won that I skipped the next election. Hey, I was young and idealistic - I know better now.

We were a Democratic family until my father shockingly voted for Regan.
I never understood why.

[bucolic_frolic]

26. Thanks

Confession of sin and catharsis is healthy. You can be a Democrat now.

[milestogo]

43. Its like I can never have a straight A report card

because i got a C my first semester.

[generalbetrayus]

28. I didn't vote for Carter in 1976 because I didn't want someone from the Deep South in the White House.

And I held my nose while voting for Bill Clinton twice. I don't regret my decision not to vote for Carter - he turned out to be a good, even great man, but he was not much of a President. He started the deregulation that bloomed under Ronald Reagan. I would have voted for John Anderson in 1980, but I couldn't make it to the polling place in time.

[mopinko]

29. my ex's 1st vote was for raygun. abc

anybody but carter. voted anderson in the primary. he regretted it almost immediately, too.
i forgave him.

[J_William_Ryan]

31. "I voted for Gerald Ford."

At least you voted for someone who was fit to be president and a good man – wrong on the issues, but fit to be president.

Ford was the last Republican that could be said about.

[Dem4life1970]

33. My first ever "vote" was for Ford...

of course I was in elementary school and it was a straw poll/ballot.

When I was 18 in 1988 I voted for Joe Biden in the primary for real, then Dukakis in the general and have voted (D) ever since.

[jalan48]

35. I've never voted for a Republican for anything. 1972 was my first vote for President and I chose McGovern.

Last edited Sat Jan 4, 2025, 04:02 PM - Edit history (1)

[nycbos]

36. Unlike todays Republicans Ford wasn't a bad guy though.

[milestogo]

38. Ford was a saint compared to the Republicans MAGATs.

He was a reasonable man.

[CapnSteve]

40. My first opportunity to vote was 1980...

I voted for Carter, and I have voted for the Democrats (and democracy!) ever since!

[waterwatcher123]

41. I made the same mistake - only in 1980 when I voted for John Anderson.

[Emile]

42. This is why we must teach our children the

difference between the two parties when they are young. I tell my granddaughters every chance I get.

[Elessar Zappa]

44. I supported Republicans in high school

because my parents were Republicans and I was horrified by the idea of abortion. That changed when I went to Boys State my senior year in high school and found out what assholes Republicans really were and that their ideas were abhorrent. I started doing research and found DU in April of 2003. I proudly voted for Kerry and was horribly depressed for three weeks when he lost.

[OverBurn]

45. First time I voted for George H. Bush, yes I was a very uninformed voter. Straight Dem ticket ever since.

[DeeDeeNY]

46. Voters in 1976 had it very different than voters in 2024

There was no internet in 1976, so everything would be more difficult to research, even on a college campus. Plus, you learned from your mistake, and learning from one's mistakes is an essential part of learning.

[ShazzieB]

47. I think I voted for Carter in 1976, but I honestly can't swear to it.

The first election I ever voted in was 1972. I was a college student in 1972 and a recent grad in 1976, didn't read the newspapers or watch the news regularly in those days, and was definitely a low information voter. But I did have strong opinions about a few things, such as feminism and getting the eff out of Vietnam, and I hated Nixon. As a result, I voted for Shirley Chishom in the Democratic primary, and George McGovern in the general.

By 1976, Nixon was out of the picture, and the U.S. was out of Vietnam, so those two things were no longer factors. I was in an apolitical phase (ugh), did not vote in the primary that year, and didn't have strong feelings about any candidate, for or against.. After Nixon, Ford seemed like a breath of fresh air by comparison, so I didn't have a burning desire to get rid of him, and I was crazy about Betty Ford as flotus. And I knew very little about Carter at the time. (Low info voter, remember?)

So I remember pondering who to vote for in November but I'm honestly not sure who I picked in the end. I can say for sure that I voted for Carter enthusiastically in 1980, and for the Democratic candidate in every presidential election from then on, but my memories of 1976 are kind of murky!

[ecstatic]

49. My very first vote was for Al Gore

It was the first presidential election I was eligible to vote in, and I liked Bill Clinton and wanted to continue in that direction. I wasn't really following politics closely back then so I don't remember the primaries or anything other than who the nominees were.

[GP6971]

60. Really? Enjoying your stay?

[Iggo]

51. I didn't either.

I was a sophomore in high school.

But the year before, our school held a mock convention where we nominated Jimmy Carter. Mike Farrell was there as the keynote speaker. (This was when MASH was still a thing, so it was kind of a big deal.)

So that sort of counts…lol.

[Raine]

54. I voted for Ford in 1976

I voted for Carter in 1980.

[RedWhiteBlueIsRacist]

55. At least you voted. I was apolitical at the time, and didn't vote. My wife voted for Carter!

She radicalized me though, and got me onboard with voting Dem!

[La Coliniere]

61. I regret not voting for Carter either and I was a registered Democrat.

I had just turned 18 and it was my first vote. I was naïve and foolish. It was Carter’s religious nature that kind of turned me off. Most of my family here in NYS were long time liberals and solid Democrats, but I knew what Southern Baptists were like since I had aunts, uncles and cousins who lived in Florida and Georgia and I thought, no way could I vote for someone who held those same kind of beliefs. On the other hand I saw the Ford family as more liberal at the time because of how they presented themselves to the public. The Ford kids were kind of cool and they loved downhill skiing which was a huge passion, still is, for me during those years. I didn’t agree with Ford’s pardoning of Nixon, but I felt that he essentially seemed to be a decent person who was doing a fair job of running the country. I was not politically astute and based my vote on a known quantity that I felt was less of a threat to the separation of church and state than the unknown person of Jimmy Carter who wore his religion on his sleeve. Of course I knew I was entirely wrong about my assumptions about Carter shortly after he became President and felt a kind of remorse about that vote for a very long time. I’d like to point out that Ford was the only Republican I’ve ever voted for in my long history of voting and that I wholeheartedly voted for Carter in 1980 and have voted 100% Democratic in every local, state and federal election since then.