Answer:
Ronald Reagan’s landslide election as President and the Republican Party’s takeover of the Senate gives a substantial push to the rightward trend which already characterizes U.S. politics and Washington policy-making. Reagan won an overwhelming 469 electoral votes and 51% of the popular vote. Carter lost all but seven states with 50 votes and lost even in his native South. No incumbent President has been so badly beaten since Herbert Hoover in 1932. In the Senate the Republicans picked up a net of ten seats, giving them a total of 52 — the first GOP majority since 1954. The Democrats maintained their edge in the House, but the Republicans gained at least 31 seats there.Prominent Democratic liberals in Congress were decisively defeated, including Senators George McGovern, Frank Church, Birch Bayh, John Culver and Warren Magnuson; House Democratic leaders John Brademas, the majority whip, and Al Ullman, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, were also ousted.