1984 Democratic Party presidential primaries 1924) that the Democratic Party nominated a private citizen for President (i.e., not serving in an official government role at the time of the nomination and election). Mondale was the last private citizen to be nominated for President by the Democratic Party until former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016. Except former Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia in 1976, all the other four of the private-citizen Democratic nominees mentioned (Davis, Stevenson, Carter, Mondale and Clinton) lost their general elections. (Republican private-citizen nominees include former Vice President Richard Nixon in 1968, former Governor Ronald Reagan of California in 1980, former
1980 Republican Party presidential primaries 1980 Republican Party presidential primaries The 1980 Republican presidential primaries were the selection process by which voters of the Republican Party chose its nominee for President of the United States in the 1980 U.S. presidential election. Former California Governor Ronald Reagan was selected as the nominee through a series of primary elections and caucuses culminating in the Republican National Convention held from July 14 to July 17, 1980, in Detroit, Michigan. As the 1980 presidential election approached, incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter appeared vulnerable. High gas prices, economic stagflation, a renewed Cold War with the Soviet Union following the invasion