Former President James “Jimmy” Carter Jr. (D), who was a U.S. Navy veteran, peanut farmer, Georgia state senator, governor of Georgia, and president, died today at the age of one hundred. Carter was treated for cancer in 2015 and suffered several serious falls in 2019, then entered hospice care in February 2023. So far, Carter is the longest-lived U.S. president and had the longest post-presidency life.
Carter’s mother was a nurse and his father was a businessman in Plains, Georgia. He grew up during the Great Depression and entered the U.S. Naval Academy during World War II. He graduated soon after the end of the war and married Rosalynn, who would remain his wife until her death in November 2023. During his service in the Navy, Carter worked in the nuclear submarine program. He planned to serve on one of the Navy’s first two nuclear subs, but instead returned to his home in Georgia after his father died to take over the family’s peanut business.
In 1963, Carter was elected to the Georgia Senate, where he served until 1967. In 1966 he sought the Democratic Party nomination for governor but was defeated. He returned to his business but began planning another gubernatorial campaign, and was elected Governor of Georgia in 1970. Carter was generally considered a moderate governor, enacting fiscally conservative policies while also advocating for civil rights and racial integration.
Carter announced in 1974 that he would be a candidate for President of the United States. As an “outsider” in national politics, he appealed to a nation that had been shaken by President Richard Nixon’s (R) “Watergate” scandal and subsequent resignation from office. Carter narrowly defeated President Gerald Ford (R), who had taken office after Nixon’s resignation, and took office as president in January 1975.
As president, Carter presided over an economic “malaise” and an energy crisis. He often found himself at-odds with Congress, including members of his own party. He supported airline and alcohol deregulation and fiscally conservative policies, but his foreign policy was generally considered weak and culminated in the Iran hostage crisis that dogged him throughout the last year of his term. Carter faced a Democratic primary challenger in 1980—then-Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA). Though Carter won the nomination, he lost the general election to Ronald Reagan (R) in a historic landslide.
Since leaving office, Carter has regularly engaged in unofficial and semi-official acts of diplomacy, and has also been unusually critical of U.S. foreign policy at times. He is perhaps best known for his post-presidential charitable and philanthropic efforts, including the founding of the Carter Center and his longstanding support for, and volunteer work with, Habitat for Humanity.
Carter is survived by his four children, Jack, James III (“Chip”), Donnel (“Jeff”), and Amy.
