He had low approval during his term; many people thought Carter mishandled the Iran hostage crisis, inflation, and severe economic downturn.

[1] In the 1980 Democratic Party presidential primaries, he was challenged by U.S. senator Ted Kennedy, whose campaign was formally launched on November 7, 1979.

[4] Carter participated in his first presidential campaign on December 12, 1974, he participated in the 1976 Democratic Party presidential primaries, he defeated all his opponents with 1,130 delegates, he was then nominated in the 1980 Democratic National Convention, during his 1976 campaign, he challenged then-president Gerald Ford over the Vietnam War and the economy as well as the quality of people's lives at that time.

In the Democratic presidential primaries, Carter faced a viable candidate, Senator Ted Kennedy.

[7] In the Massachusetts primary, Carter lost to Kennedy with 34 delegates compared to Kennedy's 78 delegates, this was a setback for Carter and he became the most recent president to lose a state primary until President Joe Biden lost to Jason Palmer in American Samoa,[8] although he still won most of the states and only missed 12 states and Washington D.C.. After the Democratic primaries ended, Carter received a total of 1,984 delegates and 51.1% popular votes compared to Kennedy with about 1,237 delegates and 37.6% popular votes, this was one of the rare times that a sitting president won.

[10] The 1980 convention was notable as it was the last time in the 20th century, for either major party, that a candidate tried to get delegates released from their voting commitments, done by Ted Kennedy.

Kennedy spoke on August 12 and gave a speech in support of President Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party.

[14] Reagan frequently criticized Carter for the crisis in Iran, economic stagnation, rising inflation, and falling approval ratings.

Reagan carried 44 states while Carter only carried 6 states with Washington D.C., this is one of the elections where the presidential candidate defeated the incumbent president in a landslide, Carter only kept Georgia, Minnesota, Washington D.C., Rhode Island, West Virginia and Hawaii for him.

When Reagan died in 2004 due to his worsening Alzheimer's disease, Carter attended his funeral.