Rockefeller’s dismissal failed to deter Reagan who, on November 19, 1975, telephoned the Oval Office to tell Ford personally he would challenge him for the nomination. With that call, Ford’s political world changed. Instead of cruising to his party’s nomination as the sitting president, he would have to hit the campaign trail. The first primary in New Hampshire was critical, because if an incumbent were to lose that contest, the wound could be fatal.

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Working for the president’s campaign, Spencer was in a unique position, since he knew both candidates and understood Reagan’s strengths and weaknesses. The former governor, Spencer said, was a “rhythm candidate.” Once he got into a campaign speaking rhythm, he was nearly impossible to beat. But “when you knock him out of that rhythm, all of a sudden he’s not the Ronald Reagan anymore,” Spencer observed. The Ford campaign had to throw Reagan off-balance, and the key was to dig up the hundreds of speeches that Reagan had made as he prepared to run for president. Making that many speeches, Spencer predicted, a presidential hopeful would get sloppy and say something outlandish.

And Reagan had. In September 1975, he proposed transferring $90 billion in federal programs to the states. Such a move would place a huge tax burden on states—political poison, the Ford campaign knew, in tax-averse New Hampshire. Just ahead of the primary, Ford staffers fed Reagan’s proposal to reporters, who then peppered him with questions and forced him on the defensive. “Reagan got out of rhythm,” Spencer recalled, and was “stumbling through New Hampshire, trying to answer questions that he couldn’t answer.” On primary day, by only 1,317 votes, the president scored a slim but crucial victory, proving Ford could compete at the national level. When news of the victory came, speechwriter Robert Orben recalled the president striding into the White House mess and declaring with satisfaction, “I hope that’s the last time I hear that the only elections I ever won were in my congressional district.”

When Ford won the next primaries in Massachusetts, Vermont and Florida, White House political operatives urged Reagan to quit. Even his own aides were privately suggesting that he consider bowing out. After all, the Republicans had enough problems already following Watergate without a divisive primary fight, and Ford and Reagan were close on most issues, including tax cuts, smaller government and a strong national defense. The entreaties only served to stir Reagan’s competitive juices. He told his aides that he would “run in every single primary from here to the convention even if I lose every single one,” and then managed to pull off a surprise victory in North Carolina.

Reagan was gaining traction with the fictitious charge that Ford had let U.S. military power slip behind the Soviet Union’s. Coming on the heels of the humiliating end of the Vietnam War, the accusation struck a responsive chord among conservatives, and for the rest of the primary season, Ford and Reagan traded blows. Ultimately, Ford won 15 state primaries to Reagan’s 12, but neither candidate won enough delegates to sew up the nomination before the August convention in Kansas City. For the first time in half a century, a political party headed into the summer uncertain of its nominee.

By contrast, Democrats were united as Jimmy Carter beat out a crowded field of presidential aspirants to emerge as the nominee. He was an unlikely candidate, a former one-term governor of Georgia with virtually no national name recognition. But he turned his inexperience into an asset, capitalizing on the post-Watergate distaste for Washington and saying, “I’ll never lie to you,” a promise that resonated with scandal-weary Americans. Carter forged a balanced ticket by picking a Midwest senator, Walter Mondale of Minnesota, as his running mate, and by July the Democrats were well prepared to take on whomever the GOP advanced as its candidate.

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