1980 United States presidential election in New York

1980 United States presidential election in New York
Reagan 40–50% 50–60% 60–70%	Carter 40–50% 50–60% 60–70%
President before election; Jimmy Carter; Democratic	Elected President ; Ronald Reagan; Republican

The 1980 United States presidential election in New York took place on November 4, 1980. All 50 states and the District of Columbia were part of the 1980 United States presidential election. Voters chose 41 electors to the Electoral College, which voted for President and Vice President.

New York was won by former California Governor Ronald Reagan, in a narrow victory against President of the United States Jimmy Carter, who failed to gain reelection against Reagan.^[1] Also in the running was Independent candidate Congressman John B. Anderson of Illinois, who ran in New York as the Liberal Party candidate.

Reagan won the state with a plurality of 46.66% of the vote to Carter's 43.99%, a margin of 2.67%. Anderson finished in third, with 7.54%. New York's election results reflect the Republican Party's re-consolidation of base under what is popularly called the "Reagan Revolution,"^[2] which sounded various overwhelming conservative electoral victories across the United States throughout the 1980s – and most evidently against the relatively unpopular President Carter during the 1980 presidential election. New York weighed in for this election as more Democratic than the national average by about 7%.

This election is notable in that while the highly populated regions of New York City, Buffalo and Albany turned out for Carter, and the sparsely populated upstate counties turned out for Reagan, the election in the state was tipped by the downstate suburban counties around NYC, which were won by Reagan. Most notably, Reagan won in the Long Island suburban counties of Nassau and Suffolk by bigger vote number margins than in all of the counties that Carter won in the state except Manhattan. Carter actually picked up plurality wins in two counties where he had lost in 1976 to Gerald Ford: namely Monroe County, home to the city of Rochester (thereby making Reagan the first-ever Republican to win the White House without carrying this county), and Niagara County. Despite these two county gains by Carter, it wasn't enough for him to retain the state that he had won four years earlier, as Carter's winning margin in New York City was considerably lower than what it had been in 1976. This fact, combined with the big vote number margins that Reagan won by in the densely populated downstate counties outside New York City, enabled Reagan to overtake Carter in the popular vote statewide.

Another major contributing factor to Reagan's victory over Carter was the relatively strong third party showing by independent candidate John B. Anderson, a former liberal Republican congressman who garnered 7.54% of the vote in the State – nearly twice the 4% margin by which Carter had won New York in 1976. Running on the ballot line of New York's Liberal Party, Anderson attracted the votes of many liberals and moderates who normally leaned Democratic but were dissatisfied with the policies of the Carter Administration, and with Rockefeller Republicans who viewed Reagan as too far to the right, thus splitting the left-leaning vote in New York State.

^ "1980 Presidential General Election Results – New York". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved April 27, 2013.
^ Jerry Lanson (November 6, 2008). "A historic victory. A changed nation. Now, can Obama deliver?". Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved April 27, 2013.

[1] "1980 Presidential General Election Results – New York". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved April 27, 2013.

[christian_science-2] Jerry Lanson (November 6, 2008). "A historic victory. A changed nation. Now, can Obama deliver?". Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved April 27, 2013.

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