Reagan Lost First Six Contests in 1976 - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Reagan Lost First Six Contests in 1976
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Every presidential campaign is different… except that it isn’t.

Just a reminder amidst the hoopla that in 1976 Gerald Ford won Iowa and the next five primaries — Florida included.

The calls for Ronald Reagan to withdraw were deafening. Reagan refused to withdraw.

Number seven — North Carolina — was the charm. From that moment forward the race see-sawed back and forth all the way to the Kansas City Convention. I was there for that. Frenetic, fevered, a battle royal.

Ford pulled it out by 117 votes.

And then.… November. Ford lost.

Jeffrey Lord
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Jeffrey Lord, a contributing editor to The American Spectator, is a former aide to Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp. An author and former CNN commentator, he writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com. His new book, Swamp Wars: Donald Trump and The New American Populism vs. The Old Order, is now out from Bombardier Books.
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