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1980 United States presidential election in Vermont

← 1976 November 4, 1980 1984 →

Nominee Ronald Reagan Jimmy Carter John B. Anderson Party Republican Democratic Independent Home state California Georgia Illinois Running mate George H. W. Bush Walter Mondale Patrick Lucey Electoral vote 3 0 0 Popular vote 94,598 81,891 31,760 Percentage 44.37% 38.41% 14.90%

County Results Municipality Results Reagan   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%   80–90% Carter   30–40%   40–50%   50–60%

President before election Jimmy Carter Democratic Elected President Ronald Reagan Republican

The1980 United States presidential election in Vermont took place on November 4, 1980, as part of the1980 United States presidential election which was held throughout all 50 states and theDistrict of Columbia. Voters chose three representatives, or electors to theElectoral College, who voted forpresident andvice president.Vermont voted for theRepublican nomineeRonald Reagan ofCalifornia and his running mateGeorge H.W. Bush ofTexas. Reagan took 44.37% of the vote to incumbent Democratic PresidentJimmy Carter’s 38.41%, a victory margin of 5.96%.IndependentJohn Anderson took 14.90%.

Long a bastion of liberal Republicanism, Vermont was the only state in the nation to swing Democratic in 1980, having delivered a more comfortable 11.20% margin of victory to moderate RepublicanGerald Ford just four years earlier in1976, even as the rest of the nation swung hard toward the GOP in 1980. 44 years later, every state swung rightward except for Nebraska's First Congressional District, which shifted towards Harris. Whereas Ford had swept every county in the state of Vermont, Reagan narrowly lost two Northwestern counties,Chittenden andGrand Isle, to Carter. Reagan became the first Republican to ever win without Grand Isle County.

Theconservative Reagan would bleed a substantial amount of support in the state to John Anderson, who had been aliberal Republican congressman before mounting his independent bid for the presidency. Anderson proved very popular with liberal and moderate voters inNew England who viewed Reagan as too far to the right and with normally leaning Democratic voters who were dissatisfied with the policies of the Carter Administration. New England overall would prove to be Anderson's strongest region in the nation, with all 6 New England states giving double-digit percentages to Anderson. Vermont would ultimately prove to be John Anderson’s second strongest state in the nation after neighboringMassachusetts, his 14.9% of the vote in the state more than double the 6.61% he got nationwide.^[1]

Along withMaine,New York,Mississippi andMichigan, Vermont was one of the few states in which President Carter won counties that had gone to Ford in the previous presidential election, as Carter flipped both Chittenden and Grand Isle counties.

To date, this is the last time that the towns ofBrattleboro,Thetford,Vershire, andWoodbury voted Republican.

• Chittenden
• Grand Isle

With Reagan only winning 44.37% of the popular vote, he became the first Republican presidential candidate to win Vermont's popular vote with only a plurality sinceWilliam Howard Taft won the state with only 37.13% of the vote back in1912. This marked the second and final time to date that has happened. This election would mark the beginning of Vermont’s transition from a staunchly Republican state to being one of the most Democratic states. Ronald Reagan represented the ascendency of the conservative movement within the modern Republican Party, a party which would become increasingly dominated by conservatives,Southerners, andEvangelical Christians during and after Reagan's administration. Vermont would consequently begin shifting increasingly toward the Democrats in the years to come. It is a highly Democratic state today, as of 2020^[update], as it has been for over 25 years.

Future SenatorBernie Sanders served as one of three electors for theSocialist Workers Party in Vermont.^[4]

• United States presidential elections in Vermont

• 1980 United States presidential election by state
• United States presidential elections in Vermont
• 1980 Vermont elections

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