Anderson established himself as a contender for the nomination in the early primaries but eventually dropped out of the Republican race, choosing to pursue an independent campaign for president.

He won support among Democrats who became disillusioned with Carter, as well as Rockefeller Republicans, independents, liberal intellectuals, and college students.

After the election, he resumed his legal career and helped found FairVote, an organization that advocates electoral reform, including an instant-runoff voting system.

He also won a lawsuit against the state of Ohio, Anderson v. Celebrezze, in which the Supreme Court struck down early filing deadlines for independent candidates.

[1] He enlisted in the Army in 1943, and served as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Field Artillery in France and Germany until the end of the war, receiving four service stars.

[1] From 1952 to 1955, he served in Berlin, as the Economic Reporting Officer in the Eastern Affairs Division, as an adviser on the staff of the United States High Commissioner for Germany.

[16] After serving for one term, he was ready to leave that office when the local congressman, 28-year incumbent Leo E. Allen, announced his retirement.

Three times (in 1961, 1963, and 1965) in his early terms as a Congressman, Anderson introduced a constitutional amendment to attempt to "recognize the law and authority of Jesus Christ" over the United States.

Other factors such as attending the funerals of Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney, as well as the street riots happening in America at that point, led to Anderson shift from the right to the left on social issues, although his fiscal positions largely remained conservative.

[13] In 1974, despite his criticism of Nixon, the strong anti-Republican tide in that year's election held him to 55% of the vote, what would be the lowest percentage of his career.

His spot as the chairman of the House Republican Committee was challenged three times after his election[11] and, when Gerald Ford was defeated in the 1976 presidential campaign, Anderson lost a key ally in Washington.

[33] In late 1977, a fundamentalist television minister from Rockford, Don Lyon, announced that he would challenge Anderson in the Republican primary.

[35] Lyon raised a great deal of money, won backing from many conservatives in the community and party, and put quite a scare into the Anderson team.

In late April 1979, Anderson made the decision to enter the Republican primary, joining a field that included Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, John Connally, Howard Baker, George H. W. Bush, and the perennial candidate Harold Stassen.

[40] He began to build support among media elites, who appreciated his articulateness, straightforward manner, moderate positions, and his refusal to walk down the conservative path that all of the other Republicans were traveling.

He supported lowering interest rates, antitrust action, conservation, environmental protection and limiting oil companies from absorbing small businesses through legislation.

He opposed Ronald Reagan's proposal to cut taxes broadly, which he feared would increase the national debt and the inflation rate (which was very high at the time of the campaign), believing it to be "Coolidge-era economics".

[40] In a stirring summation,[47] Anderson invoked his father's immigration to the United States and said that Americans would have to make sacrifices "for a better tomorrow.

[13] The television networks were covering the event, portraying Anderson to a national audience as a man of character and principle.

[48] Anderson was declared the winner in both Massachusetts and Vermont by the Associated Press,[49][50] but the following morning ended up losing both primaries by a slim margin.

[51] The Republican platform failed to endorse the Equal Rights Amendment or support extension of time for its ratification.

[56] However, in the summer of 1980, he had an overseas campaign tour to show his foreign policy credentials and it took a drubbing on national television.

[58] In late August, he named Patrick Lucey, the former two-term Democratic Governor of Wisconsin and Ambassador to Mexico as his running mate.

In early September, a court challenge to Federal Election Campaign Act was successful and Anderson qualified for post-election public funding.

[60] Many prominent intellectuals, including All in the Family creator Norman Lear, and the editors of the liberal magazine The New Republic, also endorsed the Anderson campaign.

[69] Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, actor Paul Newman and historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. were also reported to be Anderson supporters.

His inability to make headway against the de facto two-party system as an independent in that election would later lead him to become an advocate of instant-runoff voting, helping to found FairVote in 1992.

He also served as president of the World Federalist Association and on the advisory board of Public Campaign and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and was of counsel to the Washington, D.C.–based law firm of Greenberg & Lieberman, LLC.