You're forgetting the power of real charisma. The only candidate since that has come close to Reagan levels of rizz is Obama. Just you wait till Harris V Vance in 2028, watching two of the least charismatic people on the planet run a race to wield the power of a dying empire should be fun.

Reagan only won 50.7% of the popular vote. However because of the electoral college, he "won" the vast majority of states.

Read up on the Electoral College for details on how that works.

I mean the deal with iran was the cheating part.

He absolutely cheated, his campaign arranged for the hostages to be held in Iran until Reagan was elected president

There was a major collapse of the Democratic Party in 1968 which never really recovered until Obama: Carter got elected because of Watergate, Bill Clinton got elected because of Perot.

And bad as it looks in retrospect, Nixon and Reagan were very popular presidents at the time.

Elections generally tilt one way or the other based on fractions of a percentage of the vote, in fact, a single vote can be the difference.

So, if two candidates are evenly matched, it's possible that a whole state can go one way or the other based on just a few votes.

Note that this is not specific to the USA and I'm in Australia.

As far as "elections" go where there's only one choice, that's not an election but a dictatorship and from where I'm standing, the USA is heading in that direction at a breakneck speed.