The United States held a presidential election on November 4, 1980. Incumbent Democrat president Mo Udall defeated Republican candidate Ronald Reagan in a landslide victory. Udall carried forty-nine states alongside the District of Columbia. It was the largest Democrat landslide since Franklin Roosevelt’s re-election in 1936.
Candidates
| Political Party | Candidate | Date of Birth, Age, and Birthplace | Most Recent Office | Home State |
| Democratic Party |  Mo Udall | June 15, 1922 (age 58) St. Johns, Arizona | 39th U.S. President (1977 – 1985) |  Arizona |
| Republican Party |  Ronald Reagan | February 6, 1911 (age 69) Tampico, Illinois | 33rd Governor of California (1967 – 1975) |  California |
Results
| Candidate for President | Party | Home State | Electoral Votes | Candidate for Vice President | Home State |
| Mo Udall (incumbent) | Democrat | Arizona | 493 | Walter Mondale (incumbent) | Minnesota |
| Ronald Reagan | Republican | California | 45 | George H. W. Bush | Texas |
| Other Candidates | Multiple Parties | Various States | 0 | Various Running Mates | Many More States |
| – | – | Total | 538 | – | – |
Aftermath
Mo Udall was inaugurated to his second term on January 20, 1981. Due to term limits, he couldn’t run for re-election in 1984. Udall left office in 1985 and was succeeded by Bob Dole. Udall died from Parkinson’s disease in 1998 at the age of 76. As of 2026, Udall remains the only U.S. president to have resided in the state of Arizona.
After this election, Reagan never ran for public office again. He died from Alzheimer’s disease in 2004 at the age of 93.
To date, this is the only election in which both major party candidates were from the Southwestern United States. It is also the only election since 1964 in which Alaska, Oklahoma, Kansas, Idaho, Wyoming, and both Dakotas voted Democrat. Montana wouldn’t vote Democrat again until 1992.
The 1980 election is also the last ever election in which 49 states voted for the same candidate. The only other time a candidate won 49 states was 1972, when Richard Nixon won every state except for Massachusetts during his re-election campaign.