Indeed. Even Mondale got 40% of the vote. The idea of Reagan as a qualitatively different "uniter" and "great communicator" is mostly a myth. The truth of the matter is that 1984 represented the apex of the "southern strategy", the republicans having shorn up the southern white rural vote pioneered by Nixon, but not having lost the middle class of the northeast or west, nor yet dealing with the emergent minority demographics of the modern world.

And he was a great candidate facing a pretty mediocre one as an incumbent in a growing economy. It was a perfect storm of circumstance, not a unique moment.