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 with Amnesty International, Carter criticized the use of torture at Guantánamo Bay, saying that it "contravenes the basic principles on which this nation was founded." He stated that the next president should make the promise that the United States will "never again torture a prisoner." In an October 2013 interview, Carter labeled the Affordable Care Act President Obama's major accomplishment and said "the implementation of it now is questionable at best". In July 2017, Carter concluded the US would eventually see the implementation of a single-payer healthcare system. Carter vigorously opposed the Supreme Court decision in "Citizens United v. FEC"