Sweeping, overwhelming, historic--Ronald Reagan's 1984 landslide merited all those terms. But one thing it could not be called was unexpected. In January, White House polls showed Reagan to have a chance of carrying nearly every state; by midyear, national surveys put his lead over Democrat Walter Mondale near the final margin of 18 percentage points.
If not unexpected, however, Reagan's electoral dominance in 1984 ranks as one of the more improbable phenomena in the history of American politics. Who, even two years ago, would have bet that an intense conservative often accused of partiality to the rich would win a majority...
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