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 issued a statement that his medical scans no longer showed any cancer. On January 20, 2017, at age 92, Carter became the oldest living former president to attend a presidential inauguration. Carter, born October 1, 1924 (age ), also has the distinction of having the longest post-presidency in U.S. history, currently at . He is currently the second longest-lived president in history after George H. W. Bush, who was born 111 days before Carter. With Bush's death on November 30, 2018, Carter would become the longest-lived president on March 21, 2019. Carter has made arrangements to be buried in front