United States presidential election, 1972

United States presidential election, 1972

November 7, 1972

All 538 electoral votes of the Electoral College 270 electoral votes needed to win Turnout 55.2%[1]   Nominee Richard Nixon George McGovern Party Republican Democratic Home state California South Dakota Running mate Spiro Agnew Sargent Shriver (replacing Thomas Eagleton) Electoral vote 520 17 States carried 49 1 + DC Popular vote 47,168,710 29,173,222 Percentage 60.7% 37.5%

Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Nixon/Agnew, Blue denotes those won by McGovern/Shriver. Gold is the electoral vote for John Hospers by a Virginia faithless elector. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.

President before election Richard Nixon Republican Elected President Richard Nixon Republican

Watergate scandal
Watergate complex
Events
List Timeline Nixon White House tapes Operation Sandwedge Operation Gemstone 1972 U.S. presidential election Presidency of Richard Nixon "Saturday Night Massacre" "White House horrors" United States v. Nixon Resignation speech Inauguration of Gerald Ford
People
Watergate burglars Bernard Barker Virgilio Gonzalez Eugenio Martínez James W. McCord, Jr. Frank Sturgis
Groups Master list of Nixon's political opponents Nixon's Enemies List Watergate Babies Watergate Seven White House Plumbers
CRP Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP) Fred LaRue Jeb Stuart Magruder Robert Mardian John N. Mitchell Kenneth Parkinson Hugh W. Sloan, Jr. Maurice Stans
White House Alexander Butterfield Charles Colson John Dean John Ehrlichman Gerald Ford H. R. Haldeman E. Howard Hunt Egil Krogh G. Gordon Liddy Richard Nixon Gordon C. Strachan Rose Mary Woods
Judiciary Archibald Cox Leon Jaworski John Sirica
Journalists Carl Bernstein Bob Woodward The Washington Post
Intelligence community Mark Felt aka "Deep Throat" L. Patrick Gray Richard Helms James R. Schlesinger
Congress Howard Baker Sam Ervin Peter W. Rodino U.S. Senate Watergate Committee

The United States presidential election of 1972 was the 47th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 1972. The Democratic Party's nomination was eventually won by Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, who ran an anti-war campaign against incumbent Republican President Richard Nixon, but was handicapped by his outsider status, limited support from his own party, the perception of many voters that he was a left-wing extremist and the scandal that resulted from the firing of vice-presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton.

Emphasizing a good economy and his successes in foreign affairs, such as coming near to ending American involvement in the Vietnam War and establishing relations with China, Nixon decisively defeated McGovern. Overall, Nixon won 60.7% of the popular vote, a percentage only slightly lower than Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, but with a larger margin of victory in the popular vote (23.2%), the fourth largest in presidential election history. He received almost 18 million more popular votes than McGovern, the widest margin of any United States presidential election. McGovern only won the electoral votes of Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. No candidate since had managed to equal or surpass Nixon's total percentage or margin of the popular vote, and his electoral vote total and percentage has been surpassed only once, and his state total matched only once, by Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Also in this election, Shirley Chisholm became the first African American to run for a major party nomination, and Patsy Mink was the first Asian American candidate to run for the Democratic Party nomination. It also was the first time that Hawaii was carried by a Republican, becoming the last of the 50 states to do so. Together with the House and Senate elections of 1972, it was the first electoral event in which people aged 18 to 20 could vote in any state, according to the provisions of the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This is also the most recent presidential election where at least one electoral vote was won by a candidate who, at the time of the election, was neither a Republican or Democrat.

Democratic nomination

Overall, 15 people declared their candidacy for the Democratic Party nomination. They were:^[2]

• George McGovern, Senator from South Dakota
• Hubert Humphrey, Senator from Minnesota and former Vice President, presidential nominee in 1968
• George Wallace, Governor of Alabama
• Edmund Muskie, Senator from Maine
• Eugene J. McCarthy, former Senator from Minnesota
• Henry M. Jackson, Senator from Washington
• Shirley Chisholm, Representative of New York's 12th congressional district
• Terry Sanford, former Governor of North Carolina
• John Lindsay, Mayor of New York City, New York
• Wilbur Mills, Representative of Arkansas's 2nd congressional district
• Vance Hartke, Senator from Indiana
• Fred Harris, Senator from Oklahoma
• Sam Yorty, Mayor of Los Angeles, California
• Patsy Mink, Representative of Hawaii's 2nd congressional district
• Walter Fauntroy, Delegate from Washington, D.C.

Candidates gallery

• 

  Senator
  George McGovern
  of South Dakota
• 

  Senator and
  Former Vice President
  Hubert Humphrey
  of Minnesota
• 

  Governor
  George Wallace
  of Alabama
• 

  Senator
  Edmund Muskie
  of Maine
  (Ended Primary Campaign)
  (Apr. 28)
• 

  Senator
  Henry M. Jackson
  of Washington
  (Ended Primary Campaign)
  (May 2)
• 

  Representative
  Shirley Chisholm
  of New York
• 

  Former Governor
  Terry Sanford
  of North Carolina
• 

  Representative
  Wilbur Mills
  of Arkansas
• 

  Senator
  Vance Hartke
  of Indiana
  (Withdrew Mar. 26)
  (Endorsed Humphrey)
• 

  New York City Mayor
  John Lindsay
  of New York
  (Withdrew Apr. 4)
• 

  Former Senator
  Eugene McCarthy
  of Minnesota
  (Withdrew May 22)
  (Endorsed McGovern)
• 

  Representative
  Patsy Mink
  of Hawaii
  (Withdrew May 24)
• 

  Los Angeles Mayor
  Sam Yorty
  of California
• 

  Senator
  Fred Harris
  of Oklahoma
  (Withdrew Nov. 10, '71)
• 

  Senator
  Birch Bayh
  of Indiana
  (Withdrew Oct. 12, '71)
• 

  Senator
  Harold Hughes
  of Iowa
  (Withdrew Jul. 15, '71)

Primaries

Senate Majority Whip Ted Kennedy, the youngest brother of late President John F. Kennedy and late Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, was the favorite to win the 1972 nomination, but he announced he would not be a candidate.^[3] The favorite for the Democratic nomination then became Ed Muskie,^[4] the 1968 vice-presidential nominee.^[5] Muskie's momentum collapsed just prior to the New Hampshire primary, when the so-called "Canuck letter" was published in the Manchester Union-Leader. The letter, actually a forgery from Nixon's "dirty tricks" unit, claimed that Muskie had made disparaging remarks about French-Canadians – a remark likely to injure Muskie's support among the French-American population in northern New England. Subsequently, the paper published an attack on the character of Muskie's wife Jane, reporting that she drank and used off-color language during the campaign. Muskie made an emotional defense of his wife in a speech outside the newspaper's offices during a snowstorm. Though Muskie later stated that what had appeared to the press as tears were actually melted snowflakes, the press reported that Muskie broke down and cried, shattering the candidate's image as calm and reasoned.^[6]

Nearly two years before the election, South Dakota Senator George McGovern entered the race as an anti-war, progressive candidate.^[7] McGovern was able to pull together support from the anti-war movement and other grassroots support to win the nomination in a primary system he had played a significant part in designing.

On January 25, 1972, New York Representative Shirley Chisholm announced she would run, and became the first African American woman to run for the Democratic or Republican presidential nomination. Hawaii Representative Patsy Mink also announced she would run and became the first Asian American to run for the Democratic presidential nomination.^[8]

On April 25, George McGovern won the Massachusetts primary. Two days later, journalist Robert Novak claimed in a column that a Democratic senator whom he did not name said of McGovern: "The people don't know McGovern is for amnesty, abortion, and legalization of pot. Once middle America – Catholic middle America, in particular – finds this out, he's dead." The label stuck and McGovern became known as the candidate of "amnesty, abortion, and acid." It became Humphrey's battle cry to stop McGovern — especially in the Nebraska primary.^[9][10]

Alabama Governor George Wallace, an anti-integrationist, did well in the South (he won every county in the Florida primary) and in the North among alienated and dissatisfied voters. What might have become a forceful campaign was cut short when Wallace was shot in an assassination attempt by Arthur Bremer on May 15. Wallace was struck by four bullets and left paralyzed. The day after the assassination attempt, Wallace won the Michigan and Maryland primaries, but the shooting effectively ended his campaign.

In the end, McGovern won the nomination by winning primaries through grassroots support in spite of establishment opposition. McGovern had led a commission to re-design the Democratic nomination system after the divisive nomination struggle and convention of 1968. The fundamental principle of the McGovern Commission—that the Democratic primaries should determine the winner of the Democratic nomination—have lasted throughout every subsequent nomination contest. However, the new rules angered many prominent Democrats whose influence was marginalized, and those politicians refused to support McGovern's campaign (some even supporting Nixon instead), leaving the McGovern campaign at a significant disadvantage in funding compared to Nixon.

Primary results

Primaries popular vote results:^[11]

Notable endorsements

1972 Democratic National Convention

Results:

The vice presidential vote

With hundreds of delegates angry at McGovern for one reason or another, the vote was chaotic, with at least three other candidates having their names put into nomination and votes scattered over 70 candidates.^[21] The eventual winner was Senator Thomas Eagleton.

The vice-presidential balloting went on so long that McGovern and Eagleton were forced to make their acceptance speeches at around two in the morning, local time.

After the convention ended, it was discovered that Eagleton had undergone psychiatric electroshock therapy for depression and had concealed this information from McGovern. A Time magazine poll taken at the time found that 77 percent of the respondents said "Eagleton's medical record would not affect their vote." Nonetheless, the press made frequent references to his "shock therapy," and McGovern feared that this would detract from his campaign platform.^[22] McGovern subsequently consulted confidentially with preeminent psychiatrists, including Eagleton's own doctors, who advised him that a recurrence of Eagleton's depression was possible and could endanger the country should Eagleton become president.^{[23][24][25][26][27]} McGovern had initially claimed that he would back Eagleton "1000 percent," only to ask Eagleton to withdraw three days later. This perceived lack of conviction in sticking with his running mate was disastrous for the McGovern campaign.

McGovern later approached six different prominent Democrats to run as his vice-president: Ted Kennedy, Edmund Muskie, Hubert Humphrey, Abraham Ribicoff, Larry O'Brien and Reubin Askew. All six declined. Sargent Shriver, brother-in-law to John, Robert, and Ted Kennedy, former Ambassador to France and former Director of the Peace Corps, later accepted.^[28] He was officially nominated by a special session of the Democratic National Committee. By this time, McGovern's poll ratings had plunged from 41 to 24 percent.

Republican nomination

Republican candidates:

• Richard Nixon, President of the United States
• Pete McCloskey, Representative from California
• John M. Ashbrook, Representative from Ohio

Candidates gallery

• 

  President
  Richard Nixon
• 

  Representative
  John Ashbrook
  of Ohio
• 

  Representative
  Pete McCloskey
  of California

Primaries

Richard Nixon was a popular incumbent president in 1972, as he was credited with achieving détente with the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union. Polls showed that Nixon held a strong lead in the Republican primaries. He was challenged by two candidates, liberal Pete McCloskey of California and conservative John Ashbrook of Ohio. McCloskey ran as an anti-war candidate, while Ashbrook opposed Nixon's détente policies towards China and the Soviet Union. In the New Hampshire primary McCloskey garnered 19.8% of the vote to Nixon's 67.6%, with Ashbrook receiving 9.7%.^[29] Nixon won 1323 of the 1324 delegates to the Republican convention, with McCloskey receiving the vote of one delegate from New Mexico. Vice president Spiro Agnew was re-nominated by acclamation; while both the party's moderate wing and Nixon himself had wanted to replace him with a new running-mate (the moderates favoring Nelson Rockefeller, and Nixon favoring John Connally), it was ultimately concluded that the loss of Angew's base of conservative supporters would be too big of a risk.

Primary results

Primaries popular vote result:^[30]

• Richard Nixon – 5,378,704 (86.92%)
• Unpledged – 317,048 (5.12%)
• John Ashbrook – 311,543 (5.03%)
• Pete McCloskey – 132,731 (2.15%)

Convention

Seven members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War were brought on federal charges for conspiring to disrupt the Republican convention.^[31] They were acquitted by a federal jury in Gainesville, Florida.^[31]

Third parties

The only major third party candidate in the 1972 election was conservative Republican Representative John G. Schmitz, who ran on the American Party ticket (the party on whose ballot George Wallace ran in 1968). He was on the ballot in 32 states and received 1,099,482 votes. Unlike Wallace, however, he did not win a majority of votes cast in any state, and received no electoral votes.

John Hospers of the newly formed Libertarian Party was on the ballot only in Colorado and Washington and received 3,573 votes, winning no states. However, he did receive one electoral vote from Virginia from a Republican faithless elector (see below). The Libertarian vice-presidential nominee Theodora "Tonie" Nathan became the first woman in U.S. history to receive an electoral vote.^[32]

Linda Jenness was nominated by the Socialist Workers Party, with Andrew Pulley as her running-mate. Benjamin Spock and Julius Hobson were nominated for president and vice-president, respectively by, the People's Party.

General election

Campaign

McGovern ran on a platform of immediately ending the Vietnam War and instituting guaranteed minimum incomes for the nation's poor. His campaign was harmed by his views during the primaries (which alienated many powerful Democrats), the perception that his foreign policy was too extreme, and the Eagleton debacle. With McGovern's campaign weakened by these factors, the Republicans successfully portrayed him as a radical left-wing extremist incompetent to serve as president. Nixon led in the polls by large margins throughout the entire campaign. He ran a campaign with an aggressive policy of keeping tabs on perceived enemies, and his aides committed the burglary of Watergate to steal Democratic Party information during the campaign.

Results

Nixon's percentage of the popular vote was only slightly less than Lyndon Johnson's record in the 1964 election, and his margin of victory was slightly larger. Nixon won a majority vote in 49 states, including McGovern's home state of South Dakota. Only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia voted for the challenger, resulting in an even more lopsided Electoral College tally. The election saw the lowest voter turnout for a presidential election since 1948, with only 55 percent of the electorate voting, perhaps because of voter apathy caused by the foregone conclusion of a Nixon landslide. It was also the first election since 1808 in which New York did not have the largest number of electors in the Electoral College, having fallen to 41 electors versus California's 45.

Although the McGovern campaign believed that its candidate had a better chance of defeating Nixon because of the new Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution that lowered the national voting age to 18 from 21, a majority of those under 21 voted for Nixon.^[33] The 1972 election was the first in American history in which a Republican candidate carried every single Southern state, continuing the region's transformation from a Democratic bastion into a Republican one. By this time, all the Southern states except Arkansas and Texas had been carried by a Republican in either the previous election or the 1964 election. As a result of this election, Massachusetts was the only state not to be carried by Nixon in any of his three presidential campaigns. As of 2012, this is also the last election where Minnesota was carried by the Republican candidate (Minnesota later being the only state not won by Ronald Reagan in either 1980 or 1984). This election also made Nixon the second former Vice President in American history to be elected and reelected, after Thomas Jefferson in 1800 and 1804.

Presidential candidate	Party	Home state	Popular vote		Electoral vote	Running mate
			Count	Pct		Vice-presidential candidate	Home state	Elect. vote
Richard Milhous Nixon (Incumbent)	Republican	California	47,168,710	60.67%	520	Spiro Theodore Agnew	Maryland	520
George Stanley McGovern	Democratic	South Dakota	29,173,222	37.52%	17	Robert Sargent Shriver	Maryland	17
John G. Schmitz	American Independent	California	1,100,868	1.42%	0	Thomas J. Anderson	Tennessee	0
Linda Jenness	Socialist Workers	Georgia	83,380(b)	0.11%	0	Andrew Pulley	Illinois	0
Benjamin Spock	People's	California	78,759	0.10%	0	Julius Hobson	District of Columbia	0
Louis Fisher	Socialist Labor	Illinois	53,814	0.07%	0	Genevieve Gunderson	Minnesota	0
Gus Hall	Communist	New York	25,597	0.03%	0	Jarvis Tyner	Pennsylvania	0
Evelyn Reed	Socialist Workers	New York	13,878	0.02%	0	Clifton DeBerry	Illinois	0
E. Harold Munn	Prohibition	Michigan	13,497	0.02%	0	Marshall Uncapher	Kansas	0
John G. Hospers	Libertarian	California	3,674	0.00%	1(a)	Theodora Nathan	Oregon	1(a)
Other			28,628	0.04%	—	Other		—
Total			77,744,027	100%	538			538
Needed to win					270			270

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. 1972 Presidential Election Results. Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections (August 7, 2005). Source (Electoral Vote): Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (August 7, 2005). Source (Close States): http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/stats.php?year=1972&f=0&off=0&elect=0 (Retrieved: January 24, 2013).

^(a)A Virginia faithless elector, Roger MacBride, though pledged to vote for Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, instead voted for Libertarian candidates John Hospers and Theodora "Tonie" Nathan.^[32]
(b)In Arizona, Pima and Yavapai counties had a ballot malfunction that counted many votes for both a major party candidate and Linda Jenness of the Socialist Workers Party. A court ordered that the ballots be counted for both. As a consequence, Jenness received 16% and 8% of the vote in Pima and Yavapai, respectively. 30,579 of her 30,945 Arizona votes are from those two counties. Some sources do not count these votes for Jenness.

• 

  Results by county, shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote

Results by state

^[34]

States/districts won by Nixon/Agnew

States/districts won by McGovern/Shriver

		Richard Nixon Republican			George McGovern Democratic			John Schmitz American Independent			Margin		State Total
State	electoral votes	#	%	electoral votes	#	%	electoral votes	#	%	electoral votes	#	%	#
Alabama	9	728,701	72.43	9	256,923	25.54	-	11,918	1.18	-	471,778	46.89	1,006,093	AL
Alaska	3	55,349	58.13	3	32,967	34.62	-	6,903	7.25	-	22,382	23.51	95,219	AK
Arizona	6	402,812	61.64	6	198,540	30.38	-	21,208	3.25	-	204,272	31.26	653,505	AZ
Arkansas	6	445,751	68.82	6	198,899	30.71	-	3,016	0.47	-	246,852	38.11	647,666	AR
California	45	4,602,096	55.00	45	3,475,847	41.54	-	232,554	2.78	-	1,126,249	13.46	8,367,862	CA
Colorado	7	597,189	62.61	7	329,980	34.59	-	17,269	1.81	-	267,209	28.01	953,884	CO
Connecticut	8	810,763	58.57	8	555,498	40.13	-	17,239	1.25	-	255,265	18.44	1,384,277	CT
Delaware	3	140,357	59.60	3	92,283	39.18	-	2,638	1.12	-	48,074	20.41	235,516	DE
D.C.	3	35,226	21.56	-	127,627	78.10	3	-	-	-	-92,401	-56.54	163,421	DC
Florida	17	1,857,759	71.91	17	718,117	27.80	-	-	-	-	1,139,642	44.12	2,583,283	FL
Georgia	12	881,496	75.04	12	289,529	24.65	-	812	0.07	-	591,967	50.39	1,174,772	GA
Hawaii	4	168,865	62.48	4	101,409	37.52	-	-	-	-	67,456	24.96	270,274	HI
Idaho	4	199,384	64.24	4	80,826	26.04	-	28,869	9.30	-	118,558	38.20	310,379	ID
Illinois	26	2,788,179	59.03	26	1,913,472	40.51	-	2,471	0.05	-	874,707	18.52	4,723,236	IL
Indiana	13	1,405,154	66.11	13	708,568	33.34	-	-	-	-	696,586	32.77	2,125,529	IN
Iowa	8	706,207	57.61	8	496,206	40.48	-	22,056	1.80	-	210,001	17.13	1,225,944	IA
Kansas	7	619,812	67.66	7	270,287	29.50	-	21,808	2.38	-	349,525	38.15	916,095	KS
Kentucky	9	676,446	63.37	9	371,159	34.77	-	17,627	1.65	-	305,287	28.60	1,067,499	KY
Louisiana	10	686,852	65.32	10	298,142	28.35	-	52,099	4.95	-	388,710	36.97	1,051,491	LA
Maine	4	256,458	61.46	4	160,584	38.48	-	117	0.03	-	95,874	22.98	417,271	ME
Maryland	10	829,305	61.26	10	505,781	37.36	-	18,726	1.38	-	323,524	23.90	1,353,812	MD
Massachusetts	14	1,112,078	45.23	-	1,332,540	54.20	14	2,877	0.12	-	-220,462	-8.97	2,458,756	MA
Michigan	21	1,961,721	56.20	21	1,459,435	41.81	-	63,321	1.81	-	502,286	14.39	3,490,325	MI
Minnesota	10	898,269	51.58	10	802,346	46.07	-	31,407	1.80	-	95,923	5.51	1,741,652	MN
Mississippi	7	505,125	78.20	7	126,782	19.63	-	11,598	1.80	-	378,343	58.57	645,963	MS
Missouri	12	1,154,058	62.29	12	698,531	37.71	-	-	-	-	455,527	24.59	1,852,589	MO
Montana	4	183,976	57.93	4	120,197	37.85	-	13,430	4.23	-	63,779	20.08	317,603	MT
Nebraska	5	406,298	70.50	5	169,991	29.50	-	-	-	-	236,307	41.00	576,289	NE
Nevada	3	115,750	63.68	3	66,016	36.32	-	-	-	-	49,734	27.36	181,766	NV
New Hampshire	4	213,724	63.98	4	116,435	34.86	-	3,386	1.01	-	97,289	29.12	334,055	NH
New Jersey	17	1,845,502	61.57	17	1,102,211	36.77	-	34,378	1.15	-	743,291	24.80	2,997,229	NJ
New Mexico	4	235,606	61.05	4	141,084	36.56	-	8,767	2.27	-	94,522	24.49	385,931	NM
New York	41	4,192,778	58.54	41	2,951,084	41.21	-	-	-	-	1,241,694	17.34	7,161,830	NY
North Carolina	13	1,054,889	69.46	13	438,705	28.89	-	25,018	1.65	-	616,184	40.58	1,518,612	NC
North Dakota	3	174,109	62.07	3	100,384	35.79	-	5,646	2.01	-	73,725	26.28	280,514	ND
Ohio	25	2,441,827	59.63	25	1,558,889	38.07	-	80,067	1.96	-	882,938	21.56	4,094,787	OH
Oklahoma	8	759,025	73.70	8	247,147	24.00	-	23,728	2.30	-	511,878	49.70	1,029,900	OK
Oregon	6	486,686	52.45	6	392,760	42.33	-	46,211	4.98	-	93,926	10.12	927,946	OR
Pennsylvania	27	2,714,521	59.11	27	1,796,951	39.13	-	70,593	1.54	-	917,570	19.98	4,592,105	PA
Rhode Island	4	220,383	53.00	4	194,645	46.81	-	25	0.01	-	25,738	6.19	415,808	RI
South Carolina	8	478,427	70.58	8	189,270	27.92	-	10,166	1.50	-	289,157	42.66	677,880	SC
South Dakota	4	166,476	54.15	4	139,945	45.52	-	-	-	-	26,531	8.63	307,415	SD
Tennessee	10	813,147	67.70	10	357,293	29.75	-	30,373	2.53	-	455,854	37.95	1,201,182	TN
Texas	26	2,298,896	66.20	26	1,154,291	33.24	-	7,098	0.20	-	1,144,605	32.96	3,472,714	TX
Utah	4	323,643	67.64	4	126,284	26.39	-	28,549	5.97	-	197,359	41.25	478,476	UT
Vermont	3	117,149	62.66	3	68,174	36.47	-	-	-	-	48,975	26.20	186,947	VT
Virginia	12	988,493	67.84	11	438,887	30.12	-	19,721	1.35	-	549,606	37.72	1,457,019	VA
Washington	9	837,135	56.92	9	568,334	38.64	-	58,906	4.00	-	268,801	18.28	1,470,847	WA
West Virginia	6	484,964	63.61	6	277,435	36.39	-	-	-	-	207,529	27.22	762,399	WV
Wisconsin	11	989,430	53.40	11	810,174	43.72	-	47,525	2.56	-	179,256	9.67	1,852,890	WI
Wyoming	3	100,464	69.01	3	44,358	30.47	-	748	0.51	-	56,106	38.54	145,570	WY
TOTALS:	538	47,168,710	60.67	520	29,173,222	37.52	17	1,100,868	1.42	-	17,995,488	23.15	77,744,027	US

Close states

States where margin of victory was more than 5 percentage points, but less than 10 percentage points (43 electoral votes):

Minnesota, 5.51% Rhode Island, 6.19% South Dakota, 8.63% Massachusetts, 8.97% Wisconsin, 9.67%

Scandals

Watergate

On June 17, five months before election day, five men broke into the Democratic National Convention headquarters at the Watergate hotel in Washington, D.C.; the resulting investigation led to the revelation of attempted cover-ups within the Nixon administration. Known as the Watergate scandal, the exposed corruption cost Nixon public and political support, and he resigned on August 9, 1974, in the face of probable impeachment charges by Congress.

Corporate campaign contributions

As part of the continuing investigation in 1974–75, Watergate scandal prosecutors offered companies that had given illegal campaign contributions to Nixon's re-election campaign lenient sentences if they came forward.^[35] Many companies complied, including Northrop Grumman, 3M, American Airlines and Braniff Airlines.^[35] By 1976, prosecutors had convicted 18 American corporations of contributing illegally to Nixon's campaign.^[35]

See also

• George McGovern presidential campaign, 1972
• Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, a collection of articles by Hunter S. Thompson on the subject of the election, focusing on the McGovern campaign.

References

Bibliography and further reading

• Giglio, James N. "The Eagleton Affair: Thomas Eagleton, George McGovern, and the 1972 Vice Presidential Nomination," Presidential Studies Quarterly, Dec 2009, Vol. 39 Issue 4, pp 647–676
• Graebner, Norman A. "Presidential Politics in a Divided America: 1972," Australian Journal of Politics & History, March 1973, Vol. 19 Issue 1, pp 28–47
• Hofstetter, C. Richard; Zukin, Cliff. "TV Network News and Advertising in the Nixon and McGovern Campaigns," Journalism Quarterly, Spring 1979, Vol. 56 Issue 1, pp 106–152
• Nicholas, H. G. "The 1972 Elections," Journal of American Studies, April 1973, Vol. 7 Issue 1, pp 1–15
• White, Theodore S. The Making of the President, 1972 (1973)

External links

• The Election Wall's 1972 Election Video Page
• 1972 popular vote by counties
• 1972 popular vote by states
• 1972 popular vote by states (with bar graphs)
• How close was the 1972 election? at the Wayback Machine (archived August 25, 2012) — Michael Sheppard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Campaign commercials from the 1972 election
• C-SPAN segment on 1972 campaign commercials
• C-SPAN segment on the "Eagleton Affair"
• Election of 1972 in Counting the Votes

United States presidential election, 1972 Republican Party Convention Primaries Nominee: Richard Nixon VP Nominee: Spiro Agnew Candidates: John M. Ashbrook Pete McCloskey Democratic Party Convention Primaries Nominee: George McGovern VP Nominee: Sargent Shriver Candidates: Shirley Chisholm Walter E. Fauntroy Fred R. Harris Vance Hartke Wayne Hays Hubert Humphrey Henry M. Jackson John Lindsay Eugene McCarthy Wilbur Mills Patsy Mink Edmund Muskie Terry Sanford George Wallace Sam Yorty   Third party and independent candidates American Independent Party Nominee: John G. Schmitz VP nominee: Thomas J. Anderson Communist Party Nominee: Gus Hall VP nominee: Jarvis Tyner Libertarian Party Nominee: John Hospers VP nominee: Tonie Nathan People's Party Nominee: Benjamin Spock VP nominee: Julius Hobson Prohibition Party Nominee: E. Harold Munn Socialist Labor Party Nominee: Louis Fisher Socialist Workers Party Nominee: Linda Jenness Alternate nominee: Evelyn Reed VP nominee: Andrew Pulley Independent Gabriel Green Other 1972 elections: House Senate

United States presidential elections Years 1788–89 1792 1796 1800 1804 1808 1812 1816 1820 1824 1828 1832 1836 1840 1844 1848 1852 1856 1860 1864 1868 1872 1876 1880 1884 1888 1892 1896 1900 1904 1908 1912 1916 1920 1924 1928 1932 1936 1940 1944 1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 General topics Electoral College Electoral vote changes Electoral votes by state Results by Electoral College margin Results by popular vote margin Results by state Voter turnout Presidential primaries Presidential nominating conventions Election debates House elections Senate elections Gubernatorial elections

Richard Nixon January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994 37th President of the United States (1969–1974) 36th Vice President of the United States (1953–1961) U.S. Senator from California (1950–1953) U.S. Representative for CA-12 (1947–1950) Presidency First inauguration Second inauguration Nixon Doctrine "Bring Us Together" Economic policies Nixon Shock Tar Baby Option Environmental Protection Agency creation National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Space exploration 1971 National Cancer Act Vietnam War Cambodian bombing Paris Peace Accords "Peace with Honor" Silent majority Cold War period Linkage policy 1972 Visit to China Shanghai Communiqué Détente 1972 Moscow Summit Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty SALT I Treaty Prevention of Nuclear War Agreement Threshold Test Ban Treaty Endangered Species Act Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act War on Drugs Drug Enforcement Administration Enemies List list of opponents Operation CHAOS Watergate timeline White House tapes United States v. Nixon Resignation speech Pardon Cabinet State of the Union Address (1970 1973 1974) Wilson desk Judicial appointments Supreme Court controversies Life and politics Presidential Library and Museum Richard Nixon Foundation Birthplace and boyhood home Checkers speech Kitchen Debate Operation 40 "Last press conference" Florida White House "La Casa Pacifica" Nixon Center Nixon v. General Services Administration Death and funeral Books Six Crises (1962) Biographical works and bibliography Elections United States House of Representative elections, 1946 1948 U.S. Senate election, 1950 California gubernatorial election, 1962 Republican Party presidential primaries, 1960 1964 1968 1972 Republican National Conventions, 1952 1956 1960 1968 1972 Nixon Presidential campaign, 1968 United States presidential elections, 1952 1956 1960 debates 1968 1972 Popular culture Nixon goes to China (phrase) Four More Years (1972 film) All the President's Men (1974 book) All the President's Men (1976 film) Nixon in China (1987 opera) Nixon (1995 film) The Frost-Nixon Interviews (2006 play, 2008 film) Nixon in film and TV Related Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act Presidential Townhouse Family Thelma "Pat" Ryan Nixon (wife) Tricia Nixon Cox (daughter) Julie Nixon Eisenhower (daughter) Frank Nixon (father) Hannah Nixon (mother) Donald Nixon (brother) Edward Nixon (brother) Donald A. Nixon (nephew) Christopher Nixon Cox (grandson) Jennie Eisenhower (granddaughter) ← Lyndon B. Johnson Gerald Ford → Commons Wikibooks Wikiquote Wikisource texts

George McGovern July 19, 1922 — October 21, 2012 United States Senator, South Dakota, 1963—1981 United States House of Representatives, 1957—1961 Political career Director, Food for Peace World Food Programme McGovern–Fraser Commission McGovern–Hatfield Amendment United States Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs United States Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program World Food Prize Electoral history 1968 Democratic National Convention 1972 presidential campaign primaries 1972 Democratic National Convention Thomas Eagleton 1000 percent 1972 United States presidential election Legacy In popular culture Papers and manuscripts George and Eleanor McGovern Library and Center Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 (1972 articles, 1973 book) One Bright Shining Moment: The Forgotten Summer of George McGovern (2005 film) Other Awards and honors Eleanor McGovern (wife) Commons Wikiquote