Is it really goalpost moving for 'she never won' to be elaborated on, into 'she gave up before the voting even began because she was that unpopular'?

Does that really change the comparison between her and someone who came third and second in primaries? The essence of your retort was 'neither did Reagan but look at him', but the fact is that 'they both failed to win primaries', while technically correct, is definitely not equivalent to saying they were on equal standing. This is basically the exchange that just happened:

• "She obviously never won that scholarship, she never aced a test"
• "He didn't ace all his tests either, but he won the scholarship"
• "Yeah, but she had a D average and he had a B+ average"
• "Are the goalposts on wheels so they can be moved more easily?"