After reading posts that say "Jimmy Carter was my first vote",

[TNNurse]

I responded that he was my first presidential vote WHO WON. My first was by absentee ballot as a college student for Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and then in 1972 for George McGovern. I have never voted for a Republican for president.

I live in East TN and have had to vote for GOP candidates in local elections since there were no Dems on the ballot. It has gotten better.

[Glorfindel]

1. LBJ was my first vote - 1964

I have never voted for a rePuke for president, either. I live in north Georgia, so I know what you mean about no Democrats on the ballot. I usually just don't vote in those races.

[TNNurse]

4. Oh, let me clarify, in red East TN

there were no Dems in any races. I was taught by GA Democratic mother to vote, so I had to vote.

[Ms. Toad]

10. Voting every time doesn't require you to pick a candidate in every race.

Not making a selection in races in which there is no acceptable candidate won't change the outcome and gives you a chance to demonstrate that the candidate has less support than winning an election might otherwise indicate.

I don't make a selection in most most races in which there are only Republican candidates. I've also done that in primary races in which the only Democratic candidate is completely unsuitable. I did that on the last primary. I spent a good part of a decade cleaning up the messes a democratic appellate judicial candidates created in students she taught (it took some of them 7 attempts to pass the bar exam - and the only factor this group of underperforming students had in common was that she taught them in their second semester of law school). So I left that race blank to send a message to the Democratic party to field better candidates.

But I voted for her in the general election, since that vote might have made a difference in the outcome. It required an extremely string clothespin for my nose.

[chicoescuela]

2. Add me to the list for Carter being my first vote. I messed up and voted for Anderson in 80

[OAITW r.2.0]

3. I proudly cast my 1st vote for George McGovern.

Would do it again/ I, too, have never voted for a Republican POTUS.

[treestar]

5. I did write ins

whenever there was not choice other than a Republican.

[Akacia]

6. Happily voted for Jimmy Carter for my first time voting,

and would never dream of voting for a Republican.

[ProfessorGAC]

8. Same Here

'76 was my first national election. I barely was able to vote in '74, but there was no Senate seat open. (Stephenson had 2 years to go) & Percy won just 2 years prior.
So, it was just state & local and the D rep was a shoo-in so, my vote wasn't important. He won by a mile, so one more vote by an 18 year old didn't help much. At least I got to vote for him.
So, my first big vote was Carter.

[ananda]

7. Carter was my 2nd vote ... Mc Govern was my first.

And I would have voted for Carter again.

[Raftergirl]

9. Carter was my first Presidential vote.

I was first eligible to vote in ‘75.

I have never voted for a Republican, Independent or 3rd party candidate for any office, no matter how lowly.

I have only voted for D’s and I have never missed a primary or any general election.

If there was only an R or other party on the ballot, I simply would not vote for that office.

[Hekate]

11. Exactly the same for me, except I lived in a small state with a strong Democratic tradition

[Hortensis]

12. :) So many. Carter was my first vote in a GE for president also,

though not among my preferences in the primary.

It was a mess of a period. Vietnam, LBJ retired to TX after one term, continued social unrest, Richard Nixon and Watergate, global inflation then stagflation devasting the lives of millions (including ours), etcetera, etcetera.

A troubled-times set-up for a surprise upset by a southern governor who ran an "outsider" populist campaign in essence against both parties and 16 (!) other Democratic candidates. His populist premises didn't sound right to me, and I certainly disapproved of those ruthless populist campaigners and tactics I read about, but I was a kid and completely failed to recognize and understand classic signs of the populist route to power -- an outsider-styled leader focusing and fomenting mass discontent against "the establishment."

I was still in my 20s and mostly clueless while the Republican populist campaigns continued the fomenting of the anti-establishment antagonism into the giant, destructive populist movement that ended the New Deal Era in a virulently anti-government conservative wave.

Others will probably remember the refrain repeated everywhere: "We have to get government off the backs of business." (Poor little big business and our new billionaire class.)

My second presidential vote was for Carter/Mondale, of course.

[melm00se]

13. Back in 1976

my 7th grade social studies class was able to get a couple of decertified mechanical voting machines (one of the dads was on the county board of elections) and we held a schoolwide (5-8 grade) presidential election.

I remember that Carter won in 90%-10% landslide.