well, under jesse helms' leadership, reagan turned his primary campaign around. primary. he then proceeded to win primaries all across the south with this newly honed message. reagan ultimately came very close to winning enough delegates to potentially win the presidential nomination that year. he did not get all the way but he got a lot of delicates and at the 1976 convention in missouri has big delicate hall from the primaries meant he had lots of his own supporters. jesse helms and his allies were very clear on what they wanted from that platform. they wanted a plank explicitly opposing legal abortion in this country. president ford barely had enough delegates to secure the nomination. he was in no position to argue and so they got it, and that weirdly specific story is how the republican party officially became the antiabortion party. the party that would of course nominate reagan himself for president four years later and when, the party that would make opposition to legal abortion central to its identity and central to its national conventions every four ye

jesse helms took charge of reagan's local campaign.oned reagan's message in north carolina to lean into culture war issues the way jesse helms wanted to. most especially he chose the issue of abortion. the supreme court had made abortion legal. they recognized the constitutional right three years earlier in roe v. wade in 1973. well, under jesse helms's leadership, reagan turned his primary campaign around. it was a stunning upset. he proceeded to win primaries across the south with this newly honed message. reagan ultimately came very close to winning enough delegates to potentially win the presidential nomination that year. he got a lot of delegates. at the 1976 republican national convention in missouri his big elliott hall from the primaries meant he had tons of his own supporters on the committee drawing up that years republican party platform. jesse helms and his allies were clear what they wanted from that platform. they wanted a plank explicitly opposing legal abortion in this country. president ford barely had enough delegates