How a coast-to-coast victory was forged
It was not exactly a total shutout. Walter Mondale did exhibit pockets of strength in the older, industrial cities, and he won among blacks, Jews and people earning less than $10,000 a year. But the true importance of the 1984 election was not simply Ronald Reagan's overwhelming electoral total. It was the profound demographic shifts that helped account for his landslide. An analysis of the President's virtually unprecedented avalanche of support shows that he swept not only every region of the country but every age group and almost...