On November 4, 1980, California Republican Ronald Reagan trounced Jimmy Carter at the polls,

beating the incumbent by almost 10 percentage points in the popular election and winning 489 of

538 electors.

That type of victory, combined with Reagan's larger-than-life place in modern political history,

might lead you to believe the 1980 campaign was

never in doubt. But it was. And in early 1980, both men faced viable challengers within their own

party, as well as a third-party candidate whose 5.7 million popular votes could have changed the

outcome of a closer election. This election was not just a turning point. It was, in fact, far more

interesting than most people give it credit for. So why did Ted Kennedy decide to challenge the

sitting president and the Democratic primary? How did George Bush win three of the first seven

GOP primaries against the presumed nominee? And why, as his party's fortunes looked the best they had in years,

did Republican hopeful John B. Anderson of Illinois decide to leave the GOP to run a third-party campaign?

Let's find out.

Welcome to the Road to Now's third-party election series. Today, the election of 1980 with Rick

Pearlstein. I'm Ben Sawyer and this is the Road to Now, another part of our special series

on contested elections, elections with outside candidates and elections that don't quite fit the mold.

Today, we are moving on to 1980.

Now, I feel like this might be one of the episodes that you guys weren't expecting.

I mean, 1824, sure.

Four candidates, one party.

That's a surprise. 1912, 1824, sure. Four candidates, one party. That's surprise.

1912, yeah. But 1980, this is a weird, weird election. We have with us today to talk about it.

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