Former US President Jimmy Carter has died at the age of 100, almost two years after announcing he would spend his final days in hospice care, announced his son
Jimmy Carter, the longest living United States president, has died at the age of 100 after being in hospice care.

And the former president also fulfilled his dying wish - to vote for Kamala Harris in the presidential elections. Carter died on Sunday his son announced with an immediate cause not given.

The Democrat former peanut farmer, who served one term in the White House and dedicated the rest of his life to charity, decided against more medical treatment in February after a string of hospital stays. The Nobel Peace Prize winner lived out his final months in Plains, Georgia.

Carter reflecting on his life said: “Earlier in my life, I thought the things that mattered were the things that you could see, like your car, your house, your wealth, your property, your office. But as I’ve grown older I’ve become convinced that the things that matter most are the things that you can’t see—the love you share with others, your inner purpose, your comfort with who you are."

The former president voted by mail in October's presidential election, it happened barely two weeks after Carter celebrated his 100th birthday on October 1 at his home in Plains. His son Chip Carter said before the family gathering for his birthday that his father had the election very much in mind.

“He’s plugged in,” Chip Carter said. “I asked him two months ago if he was trying to live to be 100, and he said, ‘No, I’m trying to live to vote for Kamala Harris.’” Carter continued his volunteer work for decades after leaving office until he entered hospice care in February 2023.

Jimmy Carter
Living his final months in a nursing home he kept defying expectations, just as he did through a remarkable rise from his family peanut farming and warehouse business to the world stage. A skilled sportsman, Carter left home to join the US Navy, returning later to run his family's business.

Then a stint in the Georgia senate lit the touchpaper on his political career and he rose to the top of the Democratic movement. The Democrat served one presidential term from 1977 to 1981 and then for four decades led The Carter Center, which he and his wife Rosalynn co-founded in 1982 to “wage peace, fight disease, and build hope.”

“Not everybody gets 100 years on this earth, and when somebody does, and when they use that time to do so much good for so many people, it’s worth celebrating,” his grandson Jason Carter, chair of The Carter Center governing board, said in an interview when he reached the landmark birthday.

Jimmy Carter was president from 1977 to 1981
“These last few months, 19 months, now that he’s been in hospice, it’s been a chance for our family to reflect,” he continued, “and then for the rest of the country and the world to really reflect on him. That’s been a really gratifying time.”

James Earl Carter Jr. was born October 1, 1924 in Plains, and lived until recently in the same one-story home he and Rosalynn built in the early 1960s, before his first election to the Georgia state Senate. The former first lady, also from Plains, died last November at 96. About 25 family members filled his home on his 100th birthday, enjoying cupcakes on the front lawn while antique World War II planes flew over in his honour. Jill Stuckey, superintendent of the Jimmy Carter National Historic Park, recalled that a teacher once told Carter’s class that one of the students would be president someday. She said Carter “took it to heart.”

He defeated President Gerald Ford in 1976 promising to restore trust in government but lost to Ronald Reagan four years later amid soaring inflation, gas station lines and the Iran hostage crisis. Serving as 39th US president he sought to make government "competent and compassionate" but was ousted by the unstoppable Hollywood appeal of Reagan.

And he will also be remembered for a bizarre encounter with a deeply disgruntled opponent. The president was enjoying a relaxing fishing trip near his home town in 1979 when his craft was attacked by a furious swamp rabbit which reportedly swam up to the boat hissing wildly. The press had a field day, with one paper bearing the headline President Attacked By Rabbit.

Jimmy Carter with the late Queen Elizabeth in 1977
He and his wife, Rosalynn, then formed The Carter Center, and he earned a Nobel Peace Prize while making himself the most active and internationally engaged of former presidents. He leveraged his ambition with a keen intellect, deep religious faith and prodigious work ethic, conducting diplomatic missions into his 80s and building houses for the poor well into his 90s. "My faith demands - this is not optional - my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have to try to make a difference," Mr Carter once said.

Forthright and fearless, he took pot-shots at former prime minister Tony Blair and ex-US president George W Bush among others. His death came after repeated bouts of illness in which images of the increasingly frail former president failed to erase memories of his fierce spirit.

He recently said that he would be willing to travel to North Korea for peace talks on behalf of US President Donald Trump. He also famously mounted a ferocious and personal attack on Blair over the Iraq war, weeks before the prime minister left office in June 2007. Carter, who had already denounced George W Bush's presidency as "the worst in history", used an interview on BBC radio to condemn Blair for his tight relations with Bush, particularly concerning the Iraq War.

Asked how he would characterise Blair's relationship with Bush, Mr Carter replied: "Abominable. Loyal, blind, apparently subservient. I think that the almost undeviating support by Great Britain for the ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq have been a major tragedy for the world." Carter was also voluble over the Rhodesia crisis, which was about to end during his presidency.

Rosalynn Carter, Jimmy Carter, and Amy Carter on the south lawn in front of the White House in 1977
His support for Robert Mugabe at the time generated widespread criticism. He was said to have ignored the warnings of many prominent Zimbabweans, black and white, about what sort of leader Mugabe would be. This was seen by Carter's critics as "deserving a prominent place among the outrages of the Carter years".

Carter has since said he and his administration had spent more effort and worry on Rhodesia than on the Middle East. He admitted he had supported two revolutionaries in Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, and with hindsight said later that Mugabe had been "a good leader gone bad", having at first been "a very enlightened president".

One US commentator wrote: "History will not look kindly on those in the West who insisted on bringing the avowed Marxist Mugabe into the government. In particular, the Jimmy Carter foreign policy... bears some responsibility for the fate of a small African country with scant connection to American national interests." In recent years Mr Carter developed a reputation as an international peace negotiator.

He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his commitment to finding peaceful solutions to international conflicts, his work with human rights and democracy initiatives, and his promotion of economic and social programmes. Carter was dispatched to North Korea in August 2008 to secure the release of US citizen Aijalon Mahli Gomes, who had been sentenced to eight years of hard labour after being found guilty of illegally entering North Korea. He successfully secured the release of Mr Gomes.

In 2010 he returned to the White House to greet President Barack Obama and discuss international affairs amid rising tensions on the Korean peninsula. Proving politics runs in the family, in 2013 his grandson Jason, a state senator, announced his bid to become governor in Georgia, where his famous grandfather governed before becoming president. He eventually lost to incumbent Republican Nathan Deal.

Fears that Mr Carter's health was deteriorating were sparked in 2015 when he cut short an election observation visit in Guyana because he was "not feeling well". It would have been Mr Carter's 39th trip to personally observe an international election. Three months later, on August 12, he revealed he had cancer which had been diagnosed after he underwent surgery to remove a small mass in his liver.

Obama was among the well-wishers hoping for Carter's full recovery after it was confirmed the cancer had spread widely. Melanoma had been found in his brain and liver, and Mr Carter underwent immunotherapy and radiation therapy, before announcing in March the following year that he no longer needed any treatment.

In 2017, Carter was taken to hospital as a precaution, after he became dehydrated at a home-building project in Canada. He was admitted to hospital on multiple occasions in 2019 having had a series of falls, suffering a brain bleed and a broken pelvis, as well as a stint to be treated for a urinary tract infection.

Carter spent much of the coronavirus pandemic largely at his home in Georgia, and did not attend Joe Biden's presidential inauguration in 2021, but extended his "best wishes". Former first lady Rosalynn Carter, the closest adviser to Mr Carter during his term as US president, died in November 2023 after living with dementia and suffering many months of declining health.

"Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished," Mr Carter said in a statement following her death. "She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me."