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 judicial appointment controversies and Ralph Wilson Nimmons, Jr., subsequently were nominated by Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush or Bill Clinton to federal district judgeships. Also, another of the 16, Walter Meheula Heen, was given a recess appointment to his district judgeship by Carter and as a result served as a federal judge for close to a year into the presidency of Reagan, who chose not to renominate and seek a full Senate vote on Heen. The failed Carter district court nominees: Jimmy Carter judicial appointment controversies During President Jimmy Carter's presidency, he nominated four people for four different federal appellate judgeships