The United States presidential election, 1976 was held on 2 November 1976. The Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter and his running mate Walter Mondale defeated the incumbent Republican Gerald Ford and his running mate Bob Dole with 297 electoral votes to Ford's 240. The poor economy, the fall of South Vietnam, and the presidential pardon of former president Richard Nixon made Ford unpopular, and his "WIN" ("whip inflation now") buttons were often turned upside town to spell "NIW" ("no immediate miracles") out of protest against his failed policies. The Democratic outsider Jimmy Carter, Governor of Georgia, ran as a reformer, and the Carter-Mondale ticket won the last election in which Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas voted Democratic, and Carter was the first president from Georgia and the first president from the Deep South since Zachary Taylor in 1848.
Results[]
Results by county
Jimmy Carter/Walter Mondale - 50.1%
Gerald Ford/Bob Dole - 48%- Eugene McCarthy - .91%
- Roger MacBride/David Bergland - .21%
 United States presidential election
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| Preceded by: 1972 |
1976 | Succeeded by: 1980 |