Former President Jimmy Carter turns 100

Former President Jimmy Carter turned 100 years old on Tuesday. He is the oldest living president in the history of the country.

His hometown, Plains, Ga., will celebrate his birthday with a military flyover, a peanut parade, and a concert. In a video birthday greeting, President Joe Biden told Carter he has been a moral force for the nation and the world—a voice of courage, conviction, and compassion.

Carter has survived over a year since he was placed in hospice care in February 2023. It is his first birthday after the death of his wife of 77 years. Former first lady Eleanor Rosalynn Carter died at 96 years old on Nov. 19.

What effect did Jimmy Carter have on American politics? The 39th president of the United States was elected in 1977 when the integrity of the office and the stability of the country had been brought under sharp scrutiny by a decade of tragedy.

In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated and, in the same year, so had then-presidential-candidate Bobby Kennedy. Carter arrived at the Oval Office vacated by President Gerald Ford who had pardoned President Richard Nixon for the Watergate scandal­—an act widely viewed as an extension of Nixon’s improprieties.

In the 1976 primary, Carter leaned into his image as a former peanut farmer and candidate with simple roots to appeal to the country, starkly contrasting many of the other 16 Democrats vying for the nomination. His grassroots efforts in states like Iowa earned his team the nickname “the Peanut Brigade.” In the general election, Carter defeated Ford with 297 electoral votes to the president’s 240.

Upon his election, Carter framed his victory as a return to a more honest form of politics.

“We have a great nation as you know,” Carter said in his victory speech. “And sometimes in the past, we’ve been disappointed at our own government. But I think it’s time to tap the tremendous strength and vitality and idealism and hope and patriotism and sense of brotherhood and sisterhood in this country, to unify our nation and make it great once again.”

Carter would serve one term, succeeded by President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

Dig deeper: Today’s candidates also present the country with a pair of sharply different views of the country. Here’s where those candidates are on the country’s biggest issues.