The presidential election of 1984 was a very partisan election for Texas, with nearly all of the electorate voting for either the Democratic or Republican parties, and only three candidates formally appearing on the ballot. The vast majority of counties in Texas voted mainly for the Republican candidate, a particularly strong turn out in this typically conservative leaning state. This is one of the last elections where many rural counties in the Texas Panhandle voted Democratic, especially near Dickens County. There is also one of the last elections with prominent Democratic strength in East Texas. Texas weighed in for this election as 5 points more Republican than the national average. , this is the last time El Paso County voted for a Republican presidential candidate.
Republican victory
Reagan won the election in Texas with a resounding 27 point sweep-out landslide. This election, aided by having Texas native George H. W. Bush on the ticket, established Texas as voting reliably Republican during presidential elections. The recently Democratic-leaning state of Texas, had, for the previous two decades been making a transition toward the Republican party, which was solidified under Reagan and Bush into the Republican stronghold seen during the subsequent decades. The election results in Texas are also reflective of a nationwide re-consolidation 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. No Republican candidate has received as strong of support in the American South at large, as Reagan did. 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 Texas, and across the nation at large. Many registered Democrats who voted for Reagan 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 the Soviet Union, 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 Texas and elsewhere. in Dallas, Texas.
