Presidency of Jimmy Carter taken on the eve of the election showed a close race, Reagan won a decisive victory. In polls of historians and political scientists, Carter is usually ranked as a below-average president. Carter was elected as the Governor of Georgia in 1970, and during his four years in office he earned a reputation as a progressive, racially moderate Southern governor. Observing George McGovern's success in the 1972 Democratic primaries, Carter came to believe that he could win the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination by running as an outsider unconnected to establishment politicians in Washington, D.C. Despite scant backing from party leaders, McGovern
Jimmy Carter projected an easy self-confidence, in contrast to Carter's serious and introspective temperament. What many people believed to be Carter's personal attention to detail, his pessimistic attitude, his seeming indecisiveness and weakness with people were accentuated in contrast to what many saw as Reagan's charismatic charm and delegation of tasks to subordinates. Reagan used the economic problems, Iran hostage crisis, and lack of Washington cooperation to portray Carter as a weak and ineffectual leader. Like his immediate predecessor, Gerald Ford, Carter did not serve a second term as president. Among those who were elected as president, Carter was the first since