The Walter Mondale 1984 presidential campaign began on February 21, 1983, when Walter Mondale, a former Minnesota senator and vice president of the United States, announced that he was running for president in a speech at the Minnesota State Capitol. Mondale won the Democratic Party's presidential nomination after convincing Frank Lautenberg, a previously unpledged party delegate, to support him. Lautenberg's vote gave Mondale the 1,967 delegate votes needed to become the Democratic Party's nominee. Mondale picked Geraldine Ferraro, a U.S. representative from New York, as his running mate. Mondale lost the general election, held on November 6, 1984, to incumbent Republican President Ronald Reagan in a landslide. Had Mondale been elected, he would have been the first U.S. president from Minnesota and the first non-incumbent vice president since Richard Nixon to take office as president. Ferraro would also have been the country's first female vice president, and the first person from New York since Nelson Rockefeller to become vice president, whereas her husband, John Zaccaro, would also have been the country's first second gentleman.
Background
A former United States Senator from Minnesota, Mondale considered running for the Democratic nomination in the 1976 presidential election, but he dropped out of the race on November 21, 1974, after having built a campaign for two years. When he dropped out, he said that he felt he lacked "the overwhelming desire to be President" and wanted to avoid "sleeping in Holiday Inns." In 1976, Jimmy Carter won the presidential election, with Mondale as his running mate. Mondale served as vice president under Carter from 1977 to 1981. In January 1981, shortly before Mondale left office as vice president, CBS News reported that he had decided to run for president in 1984.
Gaining the nomination
Democratic presidential primaries
Mondale's opponents in the race for the Democratic nomination in 1984 included Reubin Askew, Jesse Jackson, George McGovern, and Gary Hart. In early polls, Mondale had a comfortable lead over his primary rivals, and he was considered the front-runner for the nomination by odds makers. John Glenn was considered Mondale's closest rival early in the race, but Glenn's campaign collapsed early on, as did most of the other Democratic candidates' campaigns. In 1983, Mondale was endorsed by almost all AFL–CIO leaders, as well as by the National Organization for Women, who had not endorsed a candidate since they were founded 17 years earlier.
After Mondale trounced Hart in the February 20, 1984 Iowa caucuses, getting 48% of the vote to Hart's 16%, many in the media thought that the primaries were effectively over. Mondale's fate soon began to turn, however, after Hart won the New Hampshire primary, which cost Mondale his front-runner status. In an attempt to regain it, he effectively deployed the phrase "Where's the beef?" to cast doubt on Hart's claim that he offered "new ideas." During the course of all the primaries, Mondale got about 6.8 million votes, Hart 6.5 million, and Jackson 3.3 million.
Mondale clinched the nomination in June 1984 by receiving significantly more votes from superdelegates than Hart did. Lautenberg then stated, "I believe it is time for Gary Hart to come home to the Democratic party and behind the nomination of Walter Mondale." Nevertheless, Hart refused to concede and instead announced his intention to challenge the results at the party's upcoming convention.
Democratic National Convention
Shortly before the 1984 Democratic National Convention, Mondale chose Bert Lance to be his campaign's general chairman, and unsuccessfully attempted to remove Charles Manatt from his position as party chairman. Mondale and his campaign stopped their effort to oust Manatt in response to protests from party leaders. On Mondale's decisions, one anonymous Democratic Party aide told the New York Times: "It's a disaster. People are gulping hard. No one knows why he did it." His choice of Lance proved controversial because Lance had previously left his job in the Carter administration amid charges of bank fraud (of which he was later exonerated).
Mondale picked three-term Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro to be his running mate on July 12, 1984, making her the first woman nominated for president or vice president by a major U.S. political party. The pick was intended to energize Mondale's campaign, which it did at first. This effect proved short-lived, however, as it was soon overshadowed by a scandal involving Ferraro's and her husband's finances.