The 1980 United States presidential election was the 49th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 1980. The Republican ticket of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush defeated incumbent Democratic president Jimmy Carter and incumbent vice president Walter Mondale in a landslide victory. As of 2020, this is the most recent election in which an Democratic president lost reelection. Carter's unpopularity and poor relations with Democratic leaders encouraged an unsuccessful intra-party challenge by United States senator Ted Kennedy. Meanwhile, the Republican primaries were contested between former California governor Reagan, former Central Intelligence Agency director George H. W. Bush, United States congressman John B. Anderson, and several other candidates. All of Reagan's opponents had dropped out by the end of the primaries, and the Republicans nominated a ticket consisting of Reagan and Bush. Anderson entered the general election as an independent candidate with former Wisconsin governor Patrick Lucey serving as his running mate. Reagan campaigned for increased defense spending, implementation of supply-side economic policies, and a balanced budget. His campaign was aided by Democratic dissatisfaction with Carter, the Iran hostage crisis, and a worsening economy at home marked by stagflation. Carter attacked Reagan as a dangerous right-wing extremist, and warned that Reagan would cut Medicare and Social Security. On Election Day, Reagan won the election by a landslide, taking 489 votes in the Electoral College and 50.8% of the popular vote with a margin of 9.7%. Reagan received the highest number of electoral votes ever won by a non-incumbent presidential candidate. In the simultaneous congressional elections, Republicans won control of the United States Senate for the first time since 1952. Carter won 41% of the vote, but carried just six states and Washington, D.C. Anderson won 6.6% of the popular vote, and he performed best among liberal Republican voters dissatisfied with Reagan. Due to the rise of conservatism following Reagan's victory, historians have considered the election to be a political realignment that began with Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign in 1964, and the 1980 election marked the start of the Reagan era. Background Throughout the 1970s, the United States underwent a wrenching period of low economic growth, high inflation and interest rates, and intermittent energy crises. By October 1978, Iran—a major oil supplier to the United States at the time—was experiencing a major uprising that severely damaged its oil infrastructure and greatly weakened its capability to produce oil. In January