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| Examine major events that shaped, and were shaped by, Jesse Helms's storied career: |
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Ronald Reagan for President
(1976, 1980, 1984)
In 1975, former California Governor Ronald Reagan came to Raleigh, N.C., for one of the first fundraising events held by Jesse Helms’s political action committee, the North Carolina Congressional Club. Soon after, Helms began openly supporting Reagan for the 1976 Republican presidential nomination over incumbent President Gerald Ford. After losing the first five primaries to Ford, Reagan made his last stand in North Carolina and handed control of his campaign to Jesse Helms, who along with ally Tom Ellis launched a hard-right assault on Ford for his moderate positions. Reagan won convincingly in North Carolina, followed by several other primary victories. Though Gerald Ford was ultimately nominated in 1976, Helms and Ellis had essentially saved Reagan’s political career. The Congressional Club gave almost $5 million to Reagan’s successful 1980 presidential campaign. Reagan’s landslide reelection in 1984 swept Helms to a narrow victory in his Senate race with Jim Hunt. |
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Founding of the Moral Majority
(1979)
With the help of Senator Jesse Helms and others, Reverend Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority in 1979, mobilizing Christian conservatives to political action with moral and social issues, including opposition to abortion, gay rights and pornography. The Moral Majority played a major role in electing Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980 and Jesse Helms to his third U.S. Senate term in a heated 1984 battle with Democrat Jim Hunt. Falwell disbanded the Moral Majority in 1989.
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U.S. Senate Race
Between Jim Hunt and Jesse Helms
(1984)
Democrat Jim Hunt served an unprecedented four terms as North Carolina's governor from 1977-1985 and 1993-2001. In 1984, Hunt lost a bitterly contested race for the U.S. Senate seat held by Jesse Helms. While 1983 polls showed Helms trailing Hunt by almost 20%, Helms won a four-percentage-point victory over Hunt on the coattails of Republican President Ronald Reagan’s landslide 1984 reelection in which Reagan received 62% of the North Carolina vote. The 1984 Helms-Hunt race was the most expensive non-presidential race the country had ever seen, with combined spending exceeding $25 million. |
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U.S. Senate Race
Between Harvey Gantt and Jesse Helms
(1990)
In 1963, Jesse Helms delivered a WRAL-TV “Viewpoint” editorial praising a young African-American named Harvey Gantt for the quiet manner in which he integrated Clemson University in South Carolina. In 1990, Gantt, an architect and former mayor of Charlotte, was Helms’s Democratic challenger and the first African-American nominated for the U.S. Senate by the Democratic party. With Gantt leading in polls one week before the election, the Helms campaign aired an ad alleging Gantt’s support for racial hiring quotas. The so-called “White Hands” ad helped Helms defeat Gantt by a margin of four percentage points. |
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