The 1980 Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, former governor of California, chose George H.W. Bush, his chief competitor for the nomination, to be his running mate. Although they had disagreed on several substantive issues, when asked to join the ticket, Bush assured Reagan that he would support the Republican platform in its entirety. Reagan and Bush defeated their Democratic opponents President Jimmy Carter and Vice President Walter Mondale by almost ten percentage points. This was the biggest deficit suffered by an incumbent president since President Herbert Hoover lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt by more than 17 percentage points in 1932. John Anderson and Patrick Lucey (Independent) also lost to Reagan, finishing a distant third.
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