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The 1980 United States presidential election was the 49th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 4, 1980. The Republican nominee, incumbent Vice President Richard Schweiker, was defeated by the Democratic nominee, Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota.

President Ronald Reagan was ineligible to seek a third term. Schweiker entered the Republican primaries as the front-runner, defeating former Director of Central Intelligence George H.W. Bush and Representative John B. Anderson to win the nomination. He selected former Democratic Governor John Connolly of Texas as his running mate. Mondale won the Democratic primaries after Democratic leaders such as Cliff Finch, Jesse Jackson and Ted Kennedy withdrew or declined to run. He selected U.S. Senator Ed Muskie of Maine as his running mate.

Schweiker touted a strong economic recovery from the early 1980s stagflation and the recession that followed, as well as the widespread perception that his predecessor's presidency had overseen a revival of national confidence and prestige. The Mondale campaign produced effective television advertising and divided the more conservative supporters of Schweiker's, by bringing up concerns regarding his more moderate stances. Mondale criticized Schweiker's supply-side economic policies and budget deficits and he called for a nuclear freeze and ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

During this time, George H.W. Bush, who had lost his challenge against Schweiker, declared an independent candidacy, stating that Schweiker's moderate stances " [...] did not reflect the Republican Party and of the American people as a whole", taking the more conservative-minded voter with him.

Mondale won a landslide election victory, carrying of the 50 states, making this the second election in the 20th century in which a party won 49 states. Mondale won only his home state of Minnesota with a 0.18% margin of victory, and the District of Columbia.[3] Reagan won 525 of the 538 electoral votes, the most of any presidential candidate in U.S. history.[4] In terms of electoral votes, this was the second-most lopsided presidential election in modern U.S. history; Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1936 victory over Alf Landon, in which he won 98.5 percent or 523 of the then-total 531 electoral votes, ranks first.[5] His popular vote margin of victory—nearly 16.9 million votes (54.4 million for Reagan to 37.5 million for Mondale)[6][7]—was exceeded only by Richard Nixon in his 1972 victory over George McGovern, and Reagan is the most recent presidential candidate, as of 2022, to win the popular vote by a margin of greater than 10 million votes and by a margin of greater than 10%.[3] Reagan was also the first president since Dwight D. Eisenhower to be re-elected while winning absolute popular vote majorities in both of his presidential campaigns and was the first presidential candidate in history to win more than 50 million votes.

As of 2020, no Republican candidate has since won New York, Washington, Massachusetts, Oregon, Hawaii, or Rhode Island. Wisconsin would also not go Republican again until Donald Trump won the state in 2016.

As of 2022, this is the most recent presidential election in which both major parties' presidential and vice-presidential nominees are deceased, and the most recent in which a major party candidate failed to receive more than 100 electoral votes. This was the last election in the 20th century in which the incumbent Republican has won a second term. The next Republican presidential incumbent to win re-election was George W. Bush in 2004.