1984 United States presidential election
50th quadrennial U.S. presidential election

Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 6, 1984. Incumbent Republican president Ronald Reagan and his running mate, incumbent vice president George H. W. Bush, were re-elected to a second term; they defeated the Democratic ticket of former vice president Walter Mondale and New York congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro in a landslide.
President Reagan and Vice President Bush faced only token opposition in their bid for party re-nomination. Mondale faced a competitive field in his bid, defeating Colorado senator Gary Hart, activist Jesse Jackson, and several other candidates in the Democratic primaries. He eventually chose New York representative Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate, the first woman to be on a major party's presidential ticket.
Reagan touted a strong economic recovery from the 1970s stagflation and the 1981–1982 recession, and the widespread perception that his presidency had overseen a revival of national confidence and prestige. At 73, Reagan was the oldest person to be nominated by a major party for president, a record that stood until 2020, when both major-party candidates were older. The Reagan campaign produced effective television advertising and deftly neutralized concerns regarding Reagan's age. Mondale criticized Reagan's supply-side economics and budget deficits. He called for the reduction of U.S. public debt, a nuclear freeze, and ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “1984 United States presidential election” is 50th quadrennial U.S. presidential election. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through United, States and presidential, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q699744. The Library of Congress control number is sh2008109935. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1984, 1981, 1982 and 2020.
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This entry incorporates text from “1984 United States presidential election” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.