1984 United States presidential election in Wisconsin
The 1984 United States presidential election in Wisconsin took place on November 6, 1984. All 50 states and the District of Columbia, were part of the 1984 United States presidential election. State voters chose 11 electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president of the United States.
Wisconsin 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 incumbent Vice President and 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. It was the last time Wisconsin had voted for a Republican in a presidential election until Donald Trump won in 2016.
Partisan background
The presidential election of 1984 was a very partisan election for Wisconsin, with over 99% of the electorate voting only either Democratic or Republican, though several parties appeared on the ballot. Most counties in Wisconsin voted in majority for Reagan, a particularly strong turn out in this rapidly liberalizing state. One notable exception to this trend was Milwaukee's Milwaukee County, which voted largely for Mondale, and a few counties in the far North corner of the State, centered around Bayfield County.Wisconsin weighed in for this election as 10% more Democratic than the national average., this is the last election in which Eau Claire County, La Crosse County, Rock County, and Iowa County voted for the Republican candidate.
Democratic platform
accepted the Democratic nomination for presidency after pulling narrowly ahead of Senator Gary Hart of Colorado and Rev. Jesse Jackson of Illinois - his main contenders during what would be a very contentious Democratic primary. During the campaign, Mondale was vocal about reduction of government spending, and, in particular, was vocal against heightened military spending on the nuclear arms race against the Soviet Union, which was reaching its peak on both sides in the early 1980s.Taking a stance on the social issues of the day, Mondale advocated for gun control, the right to choose regarding abortion, and strongly opposed the repeal of laws regarding institutionalized prayer in public schools. He also criticized Reagan for his economic marginalization of the poor, stating that Reagan's reelection campaign was "a happy talk campaign," not focused on the real issues at hand.
A very significant political move during this election: the Democratic Party nominated Representative Geraldine Ferraro to run with Mondale as Vice-President. Ferraro is the first female candidate to receive such a nomination in United States history. She said in an interview at the 1984 Democratic National Convention that this action "opened a door which will never be closed again," speaking to the role of women in politics.
Republican platform
By 1984, Reagan was very popular with voters across the nation as the President who saw them out of the economic stagflation of the early and middle 1970's, and into a period of economic stability.The economic success seen under Reagan was politically accomplished in two ways. The first was initiation of deep tax cuts for the wealthy, and the second was a wide-spectrum of tax cuts for crude oil production and refinement, namely, with the 1980 Windfall profits tax cuts. These policies were augmented with a call for heightened military spending, the cutting of social welfare programs for the poor, and the increasing of taxes on those making less than $50,000 per year. Collectively called "Reaganomics", these economic policies were established through several pieces of legislation passed between 1980 and 1987.
These new tax policies also arguably curbed several existing tax loopholes, preferences, and exceptions, but Reaganomics is typically remembered for its trickle down effect of taxing poor Americans more than rich ones. Reaganomics has been criticized by many analysts as "setting the stage" for economic troubles in the United State after 2007, such as the Great Recession.
Virtually unopposed during the Republican primaries, Reagan ran on a campaign of furthering his economic policies. Reagan vowed to continue his "war on drugs," passing sweeping legislation after the 1984 election in support of mandatory minimum sentences for drug possession. Furthermore, taking a stance on the social issues of the day, Reagan strongly opposed legislation regarding comprehension of gay marriage, abortion, and environmentalism, regarding the final as simply being bad for business.
Republican victory
Reagan won the election in Wisconsin by a solid 9 point margin. While Wisconsin typically voted more conservative at the time, the election results in Wisconsin 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. The election of 1984 was the most recent election where Wisconsin has turned out for the Republican Party until Donald Trump won the state in the 2016 election. No Republican candidate has received as strong of support in the American Great Lakes States, at large, post Reagan.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 Wisconsin, 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 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 Wisconsin and elsewhere.