Presidential Election 1980-What if the hostage rescue had gone as planned?

[Fuzzybigfoot]

Jimmy Carter lost his reelection bid in a landslide.  He lost all of the crucial key states, including Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, California, Texas, New York, and then some (Massachusetts, North Carolina, Arkansas, and a handful of southern swing states which he carried handily in 1976) and lost the popular vote by nearly 10%.  However, the polls in the final days of the campaign showed Carter trailing Reagan by not very much.  Despite the fine debate performance by Ronald Reagan, many pundits believed that Carters major loss was due to the hostage crisis which was still going nowhere.

"...why the polls showed a two, three, four percentage vote spread, and more than that in some of the more drastic ones, but no one predicting and electoral sweep like this, a close electoral vote it looked like..."-Walter Cronkite, CBS news, (from video Election Night 1980 from CBS - Part 3 of 3 on YouTube, from username videoholic1980s)

My overall question, what would the race have been like if the rescue had worked?  Would the race have been fairly closer, like many annalists predicted?  If so, how would the electoral map have looked?

[hcallega]

This is a tough one, because the rescue attempt would have happened long before election night. As far as the primaries, Carter still mops the floor with Teddy. On the Republican side Reagan still wins. Carter's approval ratings likely jump significantly. However with inflation so high it is still likely that by election day he wouldn't be very popular. But ultimately I believe that Carter would have won in an election that looked something like this:

[Fuzzybigfoot]

This is a tough one, because the rescue attempt would have happened long before election night. As far as the primaries, Carter still mops the floor with Teddy. On the Republican side Reagan still wins. Carter's approval ratings likely jump significantly. However with inflation so high it is still likely that by election day he wouldn't be very popular. But ultimately I believe that Carter would have won in an election that looked something like this:

Interesting, I agree the South (or most of it) would have gone Carter's way, but I would probably put Pennsylvania, Illinois, Vermont,  Missouri, and Louisiana in the Reagan camp (but by narrow margins).

Overall, a reduced but significant Reagan victory.

[Bo]

To be honest, I still think Reagan wins if Carter gets the hostages released at anytime throughout the campaign. The high inflation and unemployment rates should have doomed Carter, even without a hostage crisis. Maybe Carter would have pulled off a narrow win if the hostages were released right before the election and if Reagan did not ask people if they were better off than they were four years ago. I think that quote swung a lot of late deciders to Reagan.

[RIP Robert H Bork]

Still Reagan. Let's not forget why he won by a landslide--are you better off now than you were four years ago?

The hostages wouldn't have changed that in any way.

[sentinel]

Still Reagan. Let's not forget why he won by a landslide--are you better off now than you were four years ago?

The hostages wouldn't have changed that in any way.

I think the hostages would definitely have changed it. The polling was very close until the anniversary of the hostage crisis and then BAM negative media coverage of Carter and the crisis...and there goes the Presidency...