What If Jimmy Carter Had a Second Term? ’80s Would Have Been Very Different

Jimmy Carter celebrates his 100th birthday on Tuesday, becoming the first American president to reach the milestone.
Carter’s legacy is often discussed in light of his accomplishments as a humanitarian and statesman, but what if his political story had been different? What if, instead of losing to Ronald Reagan in 1980, Carter had secured a second term as president?
In an interview with presidential scholar Robert Strong, a senior fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and author of Working in the World: Jimmy Carter and the Making of American Foreign Policy, Newsweek explored what the 1980s might have looked like with four more years of Jimmy Carter.
Carter’s approach to fiscal policy distinguished him from both his predecessor, Richard Nixon, and successor. Strong described Carter as “a traditional fiscal conservative.” He was committed to balancing the budget and approached economic regulation in a way that predated some of Reagan’s policies.
Carter’s deregulation efforts, including those in the airline, trucking and natural gas industries, reflected his belief in using market forces rather than government oversight to stimulate economic growth.
Reagan, meanwhile, increased the national deficit by increasing government spending while decreasing taxes. Strong argued that Carter would not have introduced such a massive tax cut and said a second Carter term might have been characterized by more restrained fiscal policies and lower deficits than what occurred in the 1980s.
Despite his fiscal conservatism, Strong did not believe Carter could have avoided the devastating recession that hit the United States at the beginning of the 1980s.
Carter’s views on social spending also set him apart from Reagan’s vision of America. Strong argued that Carter, unlike Reagan, believed in Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” social programs that sought to use government funding to reduce poverty and racial injustice.
“Carter was sympathetic to the causes or the purposes of the social spending in the Great Society, but he wasn’t going to push that agenda unless we had a revenue stream that would pay for it,” Strong said.
This perspective was reflected in his refusal to back Democratic Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy’s health care proposals, which included a proposal to establish a single-payer, nonprofit insurance plan to cover all Americans—not because Carter was against expanding health care access, but because he did not think the country could afford it at the time.
In contrast to Reagan, who campaigned on rolling back social programs, Strong argued that Carter believed in limits—”If you can’t afford it, you can’t have it.” However, Strong suggested that Carter was not fundamentally opposed to social spending as Reagan was.
A second Carter term might have seen a more measured approach to social programs, prioritizing financial responsibility while still acknowledging the need for government support where possible.
On the world stage, Carter was a staunch advocate of human rights, and this commitment likely would have been central in a second term.
Carter’s elevation of human rights to a high priority was, in Strong’s words, “an important achievement,” which has continued to influence future administrations.
He believed in a balanced approach to foreign policy that included diplomacy and moral leadership.
Strong argued that Reagan continued Carter’s tough stance on human rights in his criticisms of the Soviet Union, but Carter would have approached the Cold War with a focus less on military spending and more on moral influence.
“Carter wasn’t exaggerating the Soviet threat the way the neoconservatives and Republicans did,” Strong said, arguing that Carter was not as much a believer in the nuclear threat posed by the Soviet Union but more saw it as an economy in decline.
“The real story of the 1980s was not the rising power of the Soviet Union and military might. The real story was the declining power of an economy and a multi-ethnic nation that was starting to come apart.
A second Carter presidency might have brought about more restrained defense spending, unlike the “wildly higher” expenditures under Reagan, and Strong believed the Soviet Union still would have collapsed in the end.
Strong posited that Carter would have pursued continued engagement with China, supporting its economic growth and focusing on diplomatic solutions in the Middle East, where he would have attempted to build on the Camp David Accords, one of the landmark diplomatic achievements of his administration, where he helped broker a treaty between Israel and Egypt.
A major point of divergence between Carter and Reagan likely would have been their approach to the emerging HIV/AIDS crisis.
According to Strong, Carter “would have been more serious about supporting scientific efforts to discover what the cause of the disease was, and then he would have followed the public health advice about what needed to be done.”
Reagan’s response to the crisis has often been criticized for its sluggishness and lack of urgency.
A Carter administration might have acted sooner, possibly altering the early course of the epidemic in the United States.
Domestically, Carter’s dedication to civil rights also could have seen new dimensions in a second term. He was a fierce advocate for civil rights who in his inaugural speech as governor of Georgia in 1971 announced “the time for racial discrimination is over,” despite having been supported by pro-segregation forces in his campaign.
Though he had no opportunity to appoint any U.S. Supreme Court justices during his term, a second term could have allowed him to make appointments that were “more sympathetic to or more committed to advancement of civil rights,” Strong said.
Despite these possible differences, Strong did not believe that a second Carter presidency would have altered the long-term trajectory of American conservative politics.
“If Carter had been able to win a second term, it would have been in a close election. It wouldn’t have been a game-changing election,” Strong said.
Reagan and the conservative movement would have continued to gain momentum, bolstered by the dissatisfaction that had been building in the American electorate throughout the 1970s.
Carter’s hypothetical second term might have had a significant impact on policy, but it likely would not have stemmed the ideological shifts that ultimately defined the 1980s.
In Strong’s view, Carter lacked “the political skills or the popularity to produce a change in the trajectory of American political culture.” The conservative wave that Reagan rode to victory in 1980 was already forming, and a narrow Carter win would not have been enough to derail it.
In the end, a second term for Carter likely would have been marked by a series of modest victories: fiscal conservatism without Reagan-era deficits, restrained social spending, continued diplomatic engagement, and a steady commitment to civil rights and human rights.
Though not a transformative presidency, Carter’s hypothetical second term could have offered an alternative vision for the 1980s—one grounded in moderation, caution and moral leadership.