1976 United States presidential election in Indiana

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Turnout	60.1%[1] 0.7pp
Nominee Gerald Ford Jimmy Carter Party Republican Democratic Home state Michigan Georgia Running mate Bob Dole Walter Mondale Electoral vote 13 0 Popular vote 1,183,958 1,014,714 Percentage 53.32% 45.70%
County results Ford   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%   70–80% Carter   50–60%   60–70%
President before election Gerald Ford Republican Elected President Jimmy Carter Democratic

Apresidential election was held inIndiana on November 2, 1976, as part of the1976 United States presidential election. TheRepublican ticket of the incumbentpresident of the United StatesGerald Ford and the juniorU.S. senator fromKansasBob Dole defeated theDemocratic ticket of the formergovernor of GeorgiaJimmy Carter and the junior U.S. senator fromMinnesotaWalter Mondale. Carter defeated Ford in the national election with 297electoral votes.^[2]

Carter won the Democratic primary by a wide margin over his rivals. The closely-contested Republican primary saw the formergovernor of CaliforniaRonald Reagan defeat Ford in a narrow upset. Ford nevertheless went on to win his party's nomination at the1976 Republican National Convention. Both major candidates campaigned in Indiana during the fall, with polls showing between 15 and 20 percent of the state's voters still undecided in the final weeks of the campaign.^[3] In the general election, Ford carried most of the counties comprisingNorthern andCentral Indiana, while Carter did well inSouthern Indiana counties in theOhio Valley.^[4]

Carter carriedVigo County, Indiana, a nationalbellwether that supported the national winner in all but two presidential elections during the twentieth century.^[6] Carter's margin in Vigo County (2.3percentage points^[7]) closely mirrored his national margin over Ford.^[8]

As of2024^[update], this is the most recent presidential election in which the Democratic ticket carriedDearborn,Dubois,Martin,Ohio, andOwen counties.^[9] This was the last election until 2024 in whichSt. Joseph County, Indiana, did not support the national popular vote winner.^[10]

1976 United States presidential election in Indiana^[11]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Republican	Gerald Ford Bob Dole	1,183,958	53.32	12.79
	Democratic	Jimmy Carter Walter Mondale	1,014,714	45.70	12.36
	American	Thomas J. Anderson Rufus Shackleford	14,048	0.63	0.63
	Socialist Workers	Peter Camejo Willie Mae Reid	5,695	0.26
	U.S. Labor	Lyndon LaRouche Ronald W. Evans	1,947	0.09	0.09
Total votes			2,220,362	100.00

Hillary Rodham (m. Clinton) was a state organizer for the Carter campaign in Indiana.^[13] Takingher husband's surname, she subsequently served asfirst lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001, as U.S. senator fromNew York from 2001 to 2009, and asU.S. secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. Carter would recall Clinton's time as a campaign worker in Indiana during a speech supportingher candidacy in the2016 United States presidential election. "During my 1976 presidential run, a young woman moved to Indianapolis to help turn out the Indiana vote for me," he said. "Forty years later, I will proudly cast my vote for that same woman to be the next President of the United States."^[14]

• United States presidential elections in Indiana

• Congressional Quarterly (1985).Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections (2nd ed.). Washington D.C.: Congressional Quarterly.
• Conrad, Larry A. (1976).1976 Election Report State of Indiana. Indianapolis: Indiana Secretary of State.
• Madison, James H. (1986).The Indiana Way: A State History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• McGillivray, Alice V.; Scammon, Richard M. (1994).America at the Polls, 1960–1992: Kennedy to Clinton; A Handbook of American Presidential Election Statistics. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly.
• Menendez, Albert J. (2009).The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868–2004. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company.
• Park-Egan, Kiernan (n.d.)."1976 Presidential General Election Results, Results by Congressional District".Atlas of U.S. Presidential Election Results. RetrievedJanuary 8, 2026.
• Stoner, Andrew E. (2017).Campaign Crossroads: Presidential Politics in Indiana from Lincoln to Obama. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society Press.
• Sullivan, Robert David (June 29, 2016)."How the Red and Blue Map Evolved over the Past Century".America.

• United States presidential elections in Indiana
• 1976 United States presidential election by state
• 1976 Indiana elections

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