1976 Presidential Election

Though stunned by their loss in North Carolina, the Ford campaign responded in April with impressive wins in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Then came Texas.

With cash he raised after his North Carolina victory, Reagan took his message nationwide, raising more funds. Knowing his chances were slim in the Midwest and Mid Atlantic primaries, Reagan poured his money into Texas, where he and Lone Star voters were more ideologically in step.

Ford had reason for confidence despite his North Carolina loss. In a poll taken before the Texas primary, Time Magazine reported that, nationwide, Republicans and independents favored the president over Reagan, 62% to 25%. Internal polls suggested that Reagan's advantage in Texas was narrowing. On April 29, Ford told a reporter in Houston, "We are making it very, very close, and I am always optimistic." Stu Spencer agreed and invested $800,000 in the Texas campaign. "If we could stop him here," Spencer said, "we had him." Victory wasn’t necessary, but Ford needed to win about a third of the state’s 96 delegates.

Still, warning signs flashed. Reagan's Panama charges resonated with Texans, and he turned up the heat by suggesting that the Ford administration was considering recognizing Communist Vietnam. When Kissinger left for a seven-nation tour in Africa to support majority rule and calm racial tensions, some of Ford's advisors objected, warning that Southern conservatives would react negatively. Ford, however, insisted Kissinger's trip could not be delayed.

To his Texas audiences, Ford touted his administration's efforts to "remove all price controls from oil and new natural gas" production. Ford also cited his right-to-work safeguards, among them his common situs picketing veto and his pledge to veto bills that threatened right-to-work laws in states like Texas.

Crossover voting, however, provided Reagan a trump card. George Wallace, the conservative Governor of Alabama, was faltering in his bid for the Democratic nomination for president, leaving his supporters to seek a like-minded candidate. For thousands of Wallace-supporting Texans, Reagan fit the bill. According to James Baker, the Texas Republican primary turnout drew more than twice its usual number, at least half of whom, he believed, were Wallace supporters.

On May 1, President and Mrs. Ford left the White House Correspondents Association Dinner early to watch election returns with friends. As quickly as the television was turn on, the race was over. Reagan, the media reported, was sweeping each congressional district and likely would take all 96 delegates. The President tried to lift his friends' sagging spirits. "This is just one primary. We are going to be back in there. We are going to win more primaries, and we are going to win the nomination."

Shaken by the Texas loss, the Ford campaign hoped to find some relief among the trio of states voting on May 4 – Indiana, Georgia, and Alabama. The President had his doubts about the southern states but was confident Hoosiers would arrest Reagan's momentum. "We think the situation is crucial, and we are making a maximum effort here in Indiana," Ford told reporters in Indianapolis, adding that he believed his chances were "very good."

So, Ford touted polls showing his substantial lead over Reagan among Republicans and independents. While Reagan ramped up his criticism of Ford's foreign policy, Ford pointed to April primary wins, calculating that voters saw through Reagan's critique. When Reagan attacked Ford's farm policies, he held forth his popular Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, a native of Indiana. Finally, banking on a months-old poll that gave him a better than twenty-point lead over Reagan in the Hoosier State, Ford found reason for confidence campaigning in his home state's neighbor to the south.

His confidence was misplaced. As expected, Reagan won Georgia and Alabama. The 36-point win in the Peach State and Reagan capturing all the delegates in George Wallace's home state were troubling enough. Ford and his team, however, were stunned by their loss in Indiana. "It shocked me as much as anything else that happened during the campaign," Ford later wrote.

Indiana allowed crossover voting and witnessed a record turnout. Reagan took 45 of its 54 delegates and in the minds of many was now the frontrunner. That night, facing reporters questioning his campaign strategy, a rattled Rogers Morton thundered, "I am not going to rearrange the furniture on the deck of the Titanic!" "Your comment didn’t help one damn bit," the President told his campaign manager.

A stoic Ford faced the media the day after, brushing aside questions suggesting foreign policy was responsible for the loss. The President reaffirmed his faith in Kissinger and instead pointed to the growing number of uncommitted delegates. To whom will these more than 300 people turn? "We think it's going to be a tough race," Ford declared. "But we expect to win, and we will be at Kansas City to do so and to carry on from there for a victory in November."

Still, as James Baker pointed out, "These were dark days at the PFC." The next week saw Reagan defeat Ford in the President's native state of Nebraska. Ford managed to win in West Virginia, but that gave him only one win in the last six primaries. A shellshocked campaign staff looked at May's calendar and drew a circle around the 18th, the primary in Michigan. "We lose that Michigan primary," Baker said, "and it’s all over."

"My prestige and credibility were on the line," the President later wrote, "and what I was fighting for was nothing less than survival as a candidate." Those heady days following early wins, where rumors swirled that Reagan might quit the race, ended with the stunning losses in North Carolina, Texas, and Indiana.

By mid-May, with Ford's campaign staff bickering about strategy, style, speechwriting, and ads, influential columnists Evans and Novak hypothesized that Reagan's lead among delegates made it the Governor's race to lose. Time Magazine piled on, warning Ford "could not even be sure of carrying his home state of Michigan," an assessment Ford's quarreling staff feared was true.

Michigan might be his home state, but Ford had never run a statewide campaign there. Michigan, too, permitted crossover voting, and Ford remembered 1972, when Governor Wallace won its Democratic primary aided by Republican votes. Might 1972 play in reverse now, in 1976? Might what happened only days before in Texas and Indiana replay itself in Michigan?

Ford traveled to Michigan on May 12, determined to fight back. "I want every person who is registered in this state who can feel confidence in what we have done to vote for me, whether they call themselves Republicans, Independents or Democrats," he told reporters in Detroit. On a rainy May 15, President and Mrs. Ford boarded The Presidential Express, a train made up of seven Amtrak cars, and traveled from Flint to Niles and then to Grand Rapids. Accompanied by state Republican party leaders and reporters, Ford became the first president to campaign by rail since Truman in 1948.

Ford returned to Washington to host a Bicentennial State Dinner for the President of France on May 17. At a reciprocal dinner on the following evening, an aide handed President Ford a message. Ford was on his way to "a landslide win." Returning to the White House, he learned his fellow Michiganders had handed him 55 delegates, reserving only 29 for Reagan. On top of that, Maryland, also voting that day, gave the President all of its 43 delegates. The race was far from over. Reagan still led in the delegate count. Ford, however, allowed himself to savor the moment. Speaking with reporters the next day, he said, "Yesterday was a great day, and I think it has restored the momentum that is needed for the remaining 12 primaries and the various convention states."