534,774 338,646 Start date November 6, 1984 | 60.5% 38.3% | |
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The 1984 United States presidential election in Arkansas took place on November 6, 1984. All 50 states and the District of Columbia, were part of the 1984 United States presidential election. Arkansas voters chose 6 electors to the Electoral College, which selected the President and Vice President of the United States.
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Arkansas was won by incumbent United States President Ronald Reagan of California, who was running against former Vice President Walter Mondale of Minnesota. Reagan ran for a second time with former C.I.A. Director George H. W. Bush of Texas, and Mondale ran with Representative Geraldine Ferraro of New York, the first major female candidate for the Vice-Presidency.
Partisan background
The presidential election of 1984 was a very partisan election for Arkansas, with just under 99% of the electorate voting only either Democratic or Republican, though 10 parties total appeared on the ballot. The vast majority of counties in Arkansas voted for Reagan in a particularly strong turn out, even in this typically conservative leaning state. During this election you can still see a scattering of counties turning out for Mondale in the Southeast portion of the state, which are evident of the Democratic stronghold along the Mississippi River.
Arkansas weighed in for this election as 2% more Republican than the national average.
Republican victory
Reagan won the election in Arkansas with a resounding 22 point sweep-out landslide. While Arkansas typically voted conservative at the time, the election results in Arkansas are also reflective of a nationwide reconsolidation of base for the Republican Party which took place through the 1980s; called by Reagan the "second American Revolution." This was most evident during the 1984 presidential election. Arkansas continued in this election as a component of the Republican stronghold of the Deep South, which is evident after the presidency of Jimmy Carter.
It is speculated that Mondale lost support with voters nearly immediately during the campaign, namely during his acceptance speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention. There he stated that he intended to increase taxes. To quote Mondale, "By the end of my first term, I will reduce the Reagan budget deficit by two thirds. Let's tell the truth. It must be done, it must be done. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did." Despite this claimed attempt at establishing truthfulness with the electorate, this claim to raise taxes badly eroded his chances in what had already begun as an uphill battle against the charismatic Ronald Reagan.
Reagan also enjoyed high levels of bipartisan support during the 1984 presidential election, both in Arkansas, and across the nation at large. Many registered Democrats who voted for Reagan (Reagan Democrats) stated that they had chosen to do so because they associated him with the economic recovery, because of his strong stance on national security issues with Russia, and because they considered the Democrats as "supporting American poor and minorities at the expense of the middle class." These public opinion factors contributed to Reagan’s 1984 landslide victory, in Arkansas and elsewhere.