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 Presidential election results map.Red denotes states won by Nixon/Agnew andblue denotes those won by McGovern/Shriver.Gold represents the sole electoral vote forHospers/Nathan by aVirginiafaithless elector. Numbers indicateelectoral votes cast by each state and theDistrict of Columbia. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 7, 1972. IncumbentRepublican PresidentRichard Nixon and his running mate, incumbent Vice PresidentSpiro Agnew, were elected to a second term in alandslide. They defeated theDemocratic ticket of SenatorGeorge McGovern andformer ambassadorSargent Shriver. With 60.7% of the popular vote, Nixon won thelargest share of the popular vote for the Republican Party in any presidential election.
Nixon swept aside challenges from two Republican representatives in theRepublican primaries to win renomination. McGovern, who had played a significant role inchanging the Democratic nomination system after the1968 U.S. presidential election, mobilized theanti-Vietnam War movement and otherliberal supporters to win theDemocratic nomination. Among the candidates he defeated were early front-runnerEdmund Muskie, 1968 nomineeHubert Humphrey, governorGeorge Wallace, and representativeShirley Chisholm.
Nixon emphasized the strong economy and his success in foreign affairs, while McGovern ran on a platform calling for an immediate end to the Vietnam War and the institution of aguaranteed minimum income. Nixon maintained a large lead in polling. McGovern's general election campaign was damaged by the perception that his platform was radical, and by revelations that his initial running mate,Thomas Eagleton, had undergoneelectroconvulsive therapy as a treatment for depression; Eagleton was replaced bySargent Shriver after only nineteen days on the ticket. In June, Nixon'sreelection committee broke into theWatergate complex to wiretap theDemocratic National Committee's headquarters; early news of the incident had little impact on the success of Nixon's campaign, but further damaging revelations in the ensuingWatergate scandal soon engulfed his second term.
Nixon won the election in a landslide victory, taking 60.7% of the popular vote, carrying 49 states and becoming the first Republican to sweepthe South, whereas McGovern took just 37.5% of the popular vote. This marked the most recent time that the Republican nominee carriedMinnesota in a presidential election; it also made Nixon the only two-term vice president to be elected president twice. The 1972 election was the first since the ratification of the26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, further expanding the electorate.
Republican candidates:
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U.S. Representative from California U.S. Senator from California 36th Vice President of the United States Post-vice presidency 37th President of the United States
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| Richard Nixon | Spiro Agnew | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 37th President of the United States (1969–1974) | 39th Vice President of the United States (1969–1973) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Nixon was a popular incumbent president in 1972, as he was credited with opening thePeople's Republic of China as a result ofhis visit that year, and achievingdétente with theSoviet Union. Polls showed that Nixon held a strong lead in the Republican primaries. He was challenged by two candidates:liberalPete McCloskey from California, andconservativeJohn Ashbrook from Ohio. McCloskey ran as an anti-war candidate, while Ashbrook opposed Nixon's détente policies towards China and the Soviet Union. In theNew Hampshire primary, McCloskey garnered 19.8% of the vote to Nixon's 67.6%, with Ashbrook receiving 9.7%.[2] Nixon won 1323 of the 1324 delegates to the Republican convention, with McCloskey receiving the vote of one delegate from New Mexico. Vice PresidentSpiro 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 favoringNelson Rockefeller, and Nixon favoringJohn Connally), it was ultimately concluded that such action would incur too great a risk of losing Agnew's base of conservative supporters.
| Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Richard M. Nixon (incumbent) | 5,378,704 | 86.9 | |
| Unpledged delegates | 317,048 | 5.1 | |
| John M. Ashbrook | 311,543 | 5.0 | |
| Paul N. McCloskey | 132,731 | 2.1 | |
| George C. Wallace | 20,472 | 0.3 | |
| "None of the names shown" | 5,350 | 0.1 | |
| Others | 22,433 | 0.4 | |
| Total votes | 6,188,281 | 100 | |
Seven members ofVietnam Veterans Against the War were brought on federal charges for conspiring to disrupt the Republican convention.[4] They were acquitted by a federal jury inGainesville,Florida.[4]
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| George McGovern | Sargent Shriver | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| U.S. Senator fromSouth Dakota (1963–1981) | 21st U.S. Ambassador to France (1968–1970) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Senate Majority WhipTed Kennedy, the youngest brother of formerpresidentJohn F. Kennedy and formersenatorRobert F. Kennedy, both of whom were assassinated in the 1960s, was the favorite to win the 1972 nomination, but he announced he would not be a candidate.[24] The favorite for the Democratic nomination then became Maine SenatorEd Muskie,[25] the 1968 vice-presidential nominee.[26] Muskie's momentum collapsed just prior to the New Hampshire primary, when the "Canuck letter" was published in theManchester Union-Leader. The letter, actually a forgery from Nixon's "dirty tricks" unit, claimed that Muskie had made disparaging remarks aboutFrench-Canadians – a remark likely to injure Muskie's support among the French-American population in northernNew England.[27] Subsequently, the paper published an attack on the character of Muskie's wifeJane, reporting that she drank and usedoff-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.[27][28]
Nearly two years before the election, South Dakota SenatorGeorge McGovern entered the race as an anti-war, progressive candidate.[29] 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 a major-party presidential nomination. Hawaii Representative Patsy Mink also announced she would run, and became the first Asian American person to run for the Democratic presidential nomination.[30] On April 25, George McGovern won the Massachusetts primary. Two days later, journalistRobert Novak quoted a "Democratic senator", later revealed to be Thomas Eagleton, as saying: "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.[31][32]
Alabama GovernorGeorge Wallace, an infamous segregationist who ran on a third-party ticket in 1968, did well in theSouthern United States (winning nearly every county in the Florida primary) and among alienated and dissatisfied voters in theNorth.[33] What might have become a forceful campaign was cut short whenWallace was shot in an assassination attempt byArthur Bremer on May 15. Wallace was struck by five bullets and leftparalyzed from the waist down. The day after the assassination attempt, Wallace won the Michigan and Maryland primaries, but the shooting effectively ended his campaign, and he pulled out in July. 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 of1968. 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. Some of the principles of the McGovern Commission have lasted throughout every subsequent nomination contest, but the Hunt Commission instituted the selection ofsuperdelegates a decade later, in order to reduce the nomination chances of outsiders such as McGovern andJimmy Carter.
| Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hubert H. Humphrey | 4,121,372 | 25.8 | |
| George S. McGovern | 4,053,451 | 25.3 | |
| George C. Wallace | 3,755,424 | 23.5 | |
| Edmund S. Muskie | 1,840,217 | 11.5 | |
| Eugene J. McCarthy | 553,955 | 3.5 | |
| Henry M. Jackson | 505,198 | 3.2 | |
| Shirley A. Chisholm | 430,703 | 2.7 | |
| James T. Sanford | 331,415 | 2.1 | |
| John V. Lindsay | 196,406 | 1.2 | |
| Sam W. Yorty | 79,446 | 0.5 | |
| Wilbur D. Mills | 37,401 | 0.2 | |
| Walter E. Fauntroy | 21,217 | 0.1 | |
| Unpledged delegates | 19,533 | 0.1 | |
| Edward M. Kennedy | 16,693 | 0.1 | |
| Rupert V. Hartke | 11,798 | 0.1 | |
| Patsy M. Mink | 8,286 | 0.1 | |
| "None of the names shown" | 6,269 | 0 | |
| Others | 5,181 | 0 | |
| Total votes | 15,993,965 | 100 | |
George McGovern
George Wallace
Shirley Chisholm
Terry Sanford
Henry M. Jackson
Results:
Most polls showed McGovern running well behind incumbent PresidentRichard Nixon, except when McGovern was paired withMassachusetts SenatorTed Kennedy. McGovern and his campaign brain trust lobbied Kennedy heavily to accept the bid to be McGovern'srunning mate, but he continually refused their advances, and instead suggestedU.S. Representative (andHouse Ways and Means Committee chairman)Wilbur Mills fromArkansas and Boston mayorKevin White.[49] Offers were then made toHubert Humphrey, Connecticut SenatorAbraham Ribicoff, and Minnesota SenatorWalter Mondale, all of whom turned it down. Finally, the vice presidential slot was offered to SenatorThomas Eagleton from Missouri, who accepted the offer.[49] With hundreds ofdelegates displeased with McGovern, the vote to ratify Eagleton's candidacy was chaotic, with at least three other candidates having their names put into nomination and votes scattered over 70 candidates.[50] A grassroots attempt to displace Eagleton in favor of Texas state representativeFrances Farenthold gained significant traction, though was ultimately unable to change the outcome of the vote.[51]
The vice-presidential balloting went on so long that McGovern and Eagleton were forced to begin making their acceptance speeches at around 2 am, local time. After the convention ended, it was discovered that Eagleton had undergone psychiatricelectroshock therapy fordepression and had concealed this information from McGovern. ATime 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.[52] McGovern subsequently consulted confidentially with pre-eminent 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.[53][54][55][56][57]
McGovern had initially claimed that he would back Eagleton "1000 percent",[58] 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 prominent Democrats to run for vice president: Ted Kennedy,Edmund Muskie, Hubert Humphrey,Abraham Ribicoff,Larry O'Brien, andReubin Askew. All six declined.Sargent Shriver, brother-in-law to John, Robert, and Ted Kennedy, formerAmbassador to France, and formerDirector of thePeace Corps, later accepted.[59] He was officially nominated by a special session of theDemocratic National Committee. By this time, McGovern's poll ratings had plunged from 41 to 24 percent.
| 1972 American Independent Party ticket | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| John G. Schmitz | Thomas J. Anderson | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| U.S. Representative fromCalifornia's 35th district (1970–1973) | Magazine publisher; conservative speaker | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Lester Maddox | Thomas J. Anderson | George Wallace | ||||||
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| Lieutenant Governor ofGeorgia (1971–1975) Governor ofGeorgia (1967–1971) | Magazine publisher; conservative speaker | Governor ofAlabama (1963–1967, 1971–1979) 1968 AIP Presidential Nominee | ||||||
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| 56 votes | 24 votes | 8 votes | ||||||
The only majorthird party candidate in the 1972 election was conservative Republican RepresentativeJohn G. Schmitz, who ran on theAmerican Independent Party ticket (the party on whose ballotGeorge 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, although he did finish ahead of McGovern in four of the most conservativeIdaho counties.[60] Schmitz's performance in archconservativeJefferson County was the best by a third-party Presidential candidate in anyfree or postbellum state county since 1936 whenWilliam Lemke reached over twenty-eight percent of the vote in the North Dakota counties ofBurke,Sheridan andHettinger.[61] Schmitz was endorsed by fellowJohn Birch Society memberWalter Brennan, who also served as finance chairman for his campaign.[62]
John Hospers andTheodora "Tonie" Nathan of the newly formedLibertarian Party were on the ballot only in Colorado andWashington, but were official write-in candidates in four others, and received 3,674 votes, winning no states. However, they did receive one Electoral College vote fromVirginia from a Republicanfaithless elector (see below). The Libertarian vice-presidential nominee Tonie Nathan became the firstJew and the first woman in U.S. history to receive an Electoral College vote.[63]Linda Jenness was nominated by theSocialist Workers Party, withAndrew Pulley as her running-mate.Benjamin Spock andJulius Hobson were nominated for president and vice-president, respectively, by thePeople's Party.
The following graph depicts the standing of each candidate in the poll aggregators from February 1972 to Election Day.
| Poll source | Date(s) administered | Richard Nixon (R) | George McGovern (D) | George Wallace (AI)[c] | Other | Undecided | Margin | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Election Results | November 7, 1972 | 60.67% | 37.52% | - | 1.81% | - | 23.15 | ||
| Harris[64] | November 2–4, 1972 | 59% | 35% | - | - | 6% | 24 | ||
| Gallup[65] | November 2-4, 1972 | 61% | 35% | - | 1% | 3% | 26 | ||
| Harris[66] | October 24–26, 1972 | 60% | 32% | - | - | 8% | 28 | ||
| Harris[66] | October 17–19, 1972 | 59% | 34% | - | - | 7% | 25 | ||
| Gallup[67] | October 13-16, 1972 | 59% | 36% | - | - | 5% | 23 | ||
| Gallup[68] | Sep. 29-Oct. 9, 1972 | 60% | 34% | - | 1% | 5% | 26 | ||
| Harris[69] | October 3–5, 1972 | 60% | 33% | - | - | 7% | 27 | ||
| Gallup[70] | September 22-25, 1972 | 61% | 33% | - | 1% | 5% | 28 | ||
| Harris[71] | September 19–21, 1972 | 59% | 31% | - | - | 10% | 28 | ||
| Harris[72] | Aug. 30–Sep. 1, 1972 | 63% | 29% | - | - | 8% | 34 | ||
| Gallup[73] | August 25-28, 1972 | 61% | 36% | - | - | 3% | 25 | ||
| Gallup[74] | August 26-27, 1972 | 64% | 30% | - | - | 6% | 34 | ||
| August 21–23: Republican National Convention | |||||||||
| Gallup[75] | August 4-7, 1972 | 57% | 31% | - | - | 12% | 26 | ||
| Harris[76] | August 2–3, 1972 | 57% | 34% | - | - | 9% | 23 | ||
| Gallup[77] | July 14-17, 1972 | 56% | 37% | - | - | 7% | 19 | ||
| July 10–13: Democratic National Convention | |||||||||
| Harris[76] | July 1–6, 1972 | 55% | 35% | - | - | 10% | 20 | ||
| Gallup[78] | June 16-19, 1972 | 45% | 32% | 18% | - | 5% | 13 | ||
| 53% | 37% | - | - | 10% | 16 | ||||
| Harris[79] | June 7–10, 1972 | 45% | 33% | 17% | - | 5% | 12 | ||
| 54% | 38% | - | - | 8% | 16 | ||||
| Gallup[80] | May 26-29, 1972 | 43% | 30% | 19% | - | 8% | 13 | ||
| 53% | 34% | - | - | 13% | 19 | ||||
| Harris[81] | May 9–10, 1972 | 40% | 35% | 17% | - | 8% | 5 | ||
| 48% | 41% | - | - | 11% | 7 | ||||
| Gallup[82] | Apr. 28-May 1, 1972 | 43% | 35% | 15% | - | 7% | 8 | ||
| 49% | 39% | - | - | 12% | 10 | ||||
| Gallup[83] | April 21-24, 1972 | 45% | 32% | 16% | - | 7% | 13 | ||
| Gallup[84] | April 14-17, 1972 | 46% | 31% | 15% | - | 8% | 15 | ||
| Harris[85][81] | April 1–7, 1972 | 47% | 29% | 16% | - | 8% | 18 | ||
| 54% | 34% | - | - | 12% | 20 | ||||
| Harris[85][81] | Feb. 28 – Mar. 7, 1972 | 53% | 28% | 13% | - | 6% | 25 | ||
| 59% | 32% | - | - | 9% | 27 | ||||
| Gallup[86] | February 4-7, 1972 | 49% | 34% | 11% | - | 6% | 15 | ||
| Harris[87] | November, 1971 | 49% | 31% | 12% | - | 8% | 18 | ||
| Harris[88] | August 24-27, 1971 | 48% | 33% | 13% | - | 6% | 15 | ||
| Harris[87] | May, 1971 | 47% | 33% | 11% | - | 9% | 14 | ||
| Harris[89] | April, 1971 | 46% | 36% | 13% | - | 5% | 10 | ||
| Harris[89] | February, 1971 | 45% | 34% | 12% | - | 9% | 11 | ||
McGovern ran on a platform of immediately ending the Vietnam War and instituting aguaranteed minimum income 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, with the Republicans portraying McGovern as a radical left-wing extremist, Nixonled in the polls by large margins throughout the entire campaign. With an enormous fundraising advantage and a comfortable lead in the polls, Nixon concentrated on large rallies and focused speeches to closed and select audiences, leaving much of the retail campaigning to surrogates like Vice President Agnew. Nixon did not try by design to extend his coattails to Republican congressional or gubernatorial candidates, preferring to pad his own margin of victory.
This presidential election was the first 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.
Nixon's percentage of the popular vote was only marginally less thanLyndon B. Johnson's record in 1964, and his margin of victory was slightly larger. Nixon won a majority vote in 49 states, including McGovern's home state ofSouth Dakota. OnlyMassachusetts and theDistrict of Columbia voted for the challenger, resulting in an even more lopsidedElectoral College tally. McGovern garnered only 37.5 percent of the national popular vote, the lowest share received by a Democratic Party nominee sinceJohn W. Davis won only 28.8 percent of the vote in 1924. The only major party candidate since 1972 to receive less than 40 percent of the vote was Republican incumbent PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush who won 37.4 percent of the vote in 1992, an election that, as in 1924, was impacted by a strong third-party vote.[90] Nixon received the highest share of the popular vote for a Republican in history.
Although the McGovern campaign believed that its candidate had a better chance of defeating Nixon because of the newTwenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution that lowered the national voting age to 18 from 21, most of the youth vote went to Nixon.[91] This was the first election in American history in which aRepublican candidate carried every single Southern state, continuing the region's transformation from aDemocratic bastion (Solid South) into a Republican stronghold as Arkansas was carried by a Republican presidential candidate for the first time in a century. By this time, all the Southern states, except Arkansas and Texas, had been carried by a Republican in either the previous election or that of 1964, although Republican candidates carried Texas in 1928, 1952, and 1956. As a result of this election, Massachusetts became the only state that Nixon did not carry in any of the three presidential elections in which he was a candidate. Nixon became the first Republican to ever win two terms in the White House without carrying Massachusetts at least once, a feat later duplicated byGeorge W. Bush andDonald Trump. Additionally, this remains the last one in which Minnesota was carried by the Republican candidate.[92]
McGovern won a mere 130 counties, plus the District of Columbia and four county-equivalents in Alaska,[d] easily the fewest counties won by any major-party presidential nominee since the advent of popular presidential elections, surpassing the previous lowest figures that had been recorded by RepublicansWilliam Howard Taft in1912, andHerbert Hoover in1932 (Taft's total of 232 counties was the lowest recorded overall by a major-party candidate, and Hoover's 374 was the lowest earned by a candidate who finished in second place).[93] In nineteen states,[e] McGovern failed to carry a single county; he carried a mere one county-equivalent in a further nine states.[f] In contrast toWalter Mondale's narrow 1984 win in Minnesota, McGovern comfortably won Massachusetts but lost every other state by at least five percentage points, as well as 45 states by more than ten percentage points (all but Massachusetts, Minnesota,Rhode Island,Wisconsin, and his home state of South Dakota). This also made Nixon the second former vice president in American history, afterThomas Jefferson (in 1800 and 1804), and the only two-term Vice President to be elected President twice. Since McGovern carried only one state, bumper stickers reading "Nixon 49 America 1",[94] "Don't Blame Me, I'm From Massachusetts", and "Massachusetts: The One And Only" were popular for a short time in Massachusetts.[95] Nixon managed to win 18% of the African American vote (Gerald Ford would get 16% in 1976).[96]
TheWallace vote had been crucial to Nixon being able to sweep the states that had narrowly held out against him in 1968 (Maryland, Texas, and West Virginia), as well as the states Wallace won himself (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi). The pro-Wallace group of voters had given AIP nominee John Schmitz only a depressing 2.4% of its support, while 19.1% backed McGovern, and the majority 78.5% broke for Nixon. Nixon, who becameterm-limited under the provisions of theTwenty-second Amendment as a result of his victory, became the first presidential candidate to win a significant number of electoral votes in three presidential elections since the ratification of that Amendment; only Trump has done the same. As of 2024, Nixon was the seventh of eight presidential nominees to win a significant number of electoral votes in at least three elections, the others being Jefferson,Andrew Jackson,Henry Clay,Grover Cleveland,William Jennings Bryan,Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Trump. The 520 electoral votes received by Nixon, added to the 301 electoral votes he received in 1968, and the 219 electoral votes he received in 1960, gave him the second largest number of electoral votes received by any presidential candidate (after Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1,876 total electoral votes).[97]
| Presidential candidate | Party | Home state | Popular vote[98] | Electoral vote[99] | Running mate | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Count | Percentage | Vice-presidential candidate | Home state | Electoral vote[99] | ||||
| Richard Nixon (incumbent) | Republican | California | 47,168,710 | 60.67% | 520 | Spiro T. Agnew (incumbent) | Maryland | 520 |
| George McGovern | Democratic | South Dakota | 29,173,222 | 37.52% | 17 | Sargent Shriver | Maryland | 17 |
| John G. Schmitz | American Independent | California | 1,100,896 | 1.42% | 0 | Thomas J. Anderson | Tennessee | 0 |
| Linda Jenness | Socialist Workers | Georgia | 83,380[g] | 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 |
| John G. Hospers | Libertarian | California | 3,674 | 0.00% | 1[h][63] | Theodora Nathan | Oregon | 1[h][63] |
| Other | 81,575 | 0.10% | — | Other | — | |||
| Total | 77,744,030 | 100% | 538 | 538 | ||||
| Needed to win | 270 | 270 | ||||||
| Nixon | 60.67% | |||
| McGovern | 37.52% | |||
| Schmitz | 1.42% | |||
| Others | 0.39% | |||
| Nixon | 96.65% | |||
| McGovern | 3.16% | |||
| Hospers | 0.19% | |||
| States/districts won byNixon/Agnew | |
| States/districts won byMcGovern/Shriver | |
| † | At-large results (for Maine, which split electoral votes) |
State or district | Nixon/Agnew Republican | McGovern/Shriver Democratic | Schmitz/Anderson American Independent | Hospers/Nathan Libertarian | Margin | Total votes | |||||||||
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| Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | |||||||
| Alabama | 728,701 | 72.43 | 9 | 256,923 | 25.54 | – | 11,918 | 1.18 | – | – | – | – | 471,778 | 46.89 | 1,006,093 |
| Alaska | 55,349 | 58.13 | 3 | 32,967 | 34.62 | – | 6,903 | 7.25 | – | – | – | – | 22,382 | 23.51 | 95,219 |
| Arizona | 402,812 | 61.64 | 6 | 198,540 | 30.38 | – | 21,208 | 3.25 | – | – | – | – | 204,272 | 31.26 | 653,505 |
| Arkansas | 445,751 | 68.82 | 6 | 198,899 | 30.71 | – | 3,016 | 0.47 | – | – | – | – | 246,852 | 38.11 | 647,666 |
| California | 4,602,096 | 55.00 | 45 | 3,475,847 | 41.54 | – | 232,554 | 2.78 | – | 980 | 0.01 | – | 1,126,249 | 13.46 | 8,367,862 |
| Colorado | 597,189 | 62.61 | 7 | 329,980 | 34.59 | – | 17,269 | 1.81 | – | 1,111 | 0.12 | – | 267,209 | 28.01 | 953,884 |
| Connecticut | 810,763 | 58.57 | 8 | 555,498 | 40.13 | – | 17,239 | 1.25 | – | – | – | – | 255,265 | 18.44 | 1,384,277 |
| Delaware | 140,357 | 59.60 | 3 | 92,283 | 39.18 | – | 2,638 | 1.12 | – | – | – | – | 48,074 | 20.41 | 235,516 |
| District of Columbia | 35,226 | 21.56 | – | 127,627 | 78.10 | 3 | – | – | – | – | – | – | −92,401 | −56.54 | 163,421 |
| Florida | 1,857,759 | 71.91 | 17 | 718,117 | 27.80 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 1,139,642 | 44.12 | 2,583,283 |
| Georgia | 881,496 | 75.04 | 12 | 289,529 | 24.65 | – | 812 | 0.07 | – | – | – | – | 591,967 | 50.39 | 1,174,772 |
| Hawaii | 168,865 | 62.48 | 4 | 101,409 | 37.52 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 67,456 | 24.96 | 270,274 |
| Idaho | 199,384 | 64.24 | 4 | 80,826 | 26.04 | – | 28,869 | 9.30 | – | – | – | – | 118,558 | 38.20 | 310,379 |
| Illinois | 2,788,179 | 59.03 | 26 | 1,913,472 | 40.51 | – | 2,471 | 0.05 | – | – | – | – | 874,707 | 18.52 | 4,723,236 |
| Indiana | 1,405,154 | 66.11 | 13 | 708,568 | 33.34 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 696,586 | 32.77 | 2,125,529 |
| Iowa | 706,207 | 57.61 | 8 | 496,206 | 40.48 | – | 22,056 | 1.80 | – | – | – | – | 210,001 | 17.13 | 1,225,944 |
| Kansas | 619,812 | 67.66 | 7 | 270,287 | 29.50 | – | 21,808 | 2.38 | – | – | – | – | 349,525 | 38.15 | 916,095 |
| Kentucky | 676,446 | 63.37 | 9 | 371,159 | 34.77 | – | 17,627 | 1.65 | – | – | – | – | 305,287 | 28.60 | 1,067,499 |
| Louisiana | 686,852 | 65.32 | 10 | 298,142 | 28.35 | – | 52,099 | 4.95 | – | – | – | – | 388,710 | 36.97 | 1,051,491 |
| Maine † | 256,458 | 61.46 | 2 | 160,584 | 38.48 | – | 117 | 0.03 | – | 1 | 0.00 | – | 95,874 | 22.98 | 417,271 |
| ME-1Tooltip Maine's 1st congressional district | 135,388 | 61.42 | 1 | 85,028 | 38.58 | – | Unknown | Unknown | – | Unknown | Unknown | – | 50,360 | 22.85 | 220,416 |
| ME-2Tooltip Maine's 2nd congressional district | 121,120 | 61.58 | 1 | 75,556 | 38.42 | – | Unknown | Unknown | – | Unknown | Unknown | – | 45,564 | 23.17 | 196,676 |
| Maryland | 829,305 | 61.26 | 10 | 505,781 | 37.36 | – | 18,726 | 1.38 | – | – | – | – | 323,524 | 23.90 | 1,353,812 |
| Massachusetts | 1,112,078 | 45.23 | – | 1,332,540 | 54.20 | 14 | 2,877 | 0.12 | – | 43 | 0.00 | – | −220,462 | −8.97 | 2,458,756 |
| Michigan | 1,961,721 | 56.20 | 21 | 1,459,435 | 41.81 | – | 63,321 | 1.81 | – | – | – | – | 502,286 | 14.39 | 3,490,325 |
| Minnesota | 898,269 | 51.58 | 10 | 802,346 | 46.07 | – | 31,407 | 1.80 | – | – | – | – | 95,923 | 5.51 | 1,741,652 |
| Mississippi | 505,125 | 78.20 | 7 | 126,782 | 19.63 | – | 11,598 | 1.80 | – | – | – | – | 378,343 | 58.57 | 645,963 |
| Missouri | 1,154,058 | 62.29 | 12 | 698,531 | 37.71 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 455,527 | 24.59 | 1,852,589 |
| Montana | 183,976 | 57.93 | 4 | 120,197 | 37.85 | – | 13,430 | 4.23 | – | – | – | – | 63,779 | 20.08 | 317,603 |
| Nebraska | 406,298 | 70.50 | 5 | 169,991 | 29.50 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 236,307 | 41.00 | 576,289 |
| Nevada | 115,750 | 63.68 | 3 | 66,016 | 36.32 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 49,734 | 27.36 | 181,766 |
| New Hampshire | 213,724 | 63.98 | 4 | 116,435 | 34.86 | – | 3,386 | 1.01 | – | – | – | – | 97,289 | 29.12 | 334,055 |
| New Jersey | 1,845,502 | 61.57 | 17 | 1,102,211 | 36.77 | – | 34,378 | 1.15 | – | – | – | – | 743,291 | 24.80 | 2,997,229 |
| New Mexico | 235,606 | 61.05 | 4 | 141,084 | 36.56 | – | 8,767 | 2.27 | – | – | – | – | 94,522 | 24.49 | 385,931 |
| New York | 4,192,778 | 58.54 | 41 | 2,951,084 | 41.21 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 1,241,694 | 17.34 | 7,161,830 |
| North Carolina | 1,054,889 | 69.46 | 13 | 438,705 | 28.89 | – | 25,018 | 1.65 | – | – | – | – | 616,184 | 40.58 | 1,518,612 |
| North Dakota | 174,109 | 62.07 | 3 | 100,384 | 35.79 | – | 5,646 | 2.01 | – | – | – | – | 73,725 | 26.28 | 280,514 |
| Ohio | 2,441,827 | 59.63 | 25 | 1,558,889 | 38.07 | – | 80,067 | 1.96 | – | – | – | – | 882,938 | 21.56 | 4,094,787 |
| Oklahoma | 759,025 | 73.70 | 8 | 247,147 | 24.00 | – | 23,728 | 2.30 | – | – | – | – | 511,878 | 49.70 | 1,029,900 |
| Oregon | 486,686 | 52.45 | 6 | 392,760 | 42.33 | – | 46,211 | 4.98 | – | – | – | – | 93,926 | 10.12 | 927,946 |
| Pennsylvania | 2,714,521 | 59.11 | 27 | 1,796,951 | 39.13 | – | 70,593 | 1.54 | – | – | – | – | 917,570 | 19.98 | 4,592,105 |
| Rhode Island | 220,383 | 53.00 | 4 | 194,645 | 46.81 | – | 25 | 0.01 | – | 2 | 0.00 | – | 25,738 | 6.19 | 415,808 |
| South Carolina | 478,427 | 70.58 | 8 | 189,270 | 27.92 | – | 10,166 | 1.50 | – | – | – | – | 289,157 | 42.66 | 677,880 |
| South Dakota | 166,476 | 54.15 | 4 | 139,945 | 45.52 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 26,531 | 8.63 | 307,415 |
| Tennessee | 813,147 | 67.70 | 10 | 357,293 | 29.75 | – | 30,373 | 2.53 | – | – | – | – | 455,854 | 37.95 | 1,201,182 |
| Texas | 2,298,896 | 66.20 | 26 | 1,154,291 | 33.24 | – | 7,098 | 0.20 | – | – | – | – | 1,144,605 | 32.96 | 3,472,714 |
| Utah | 323,643 | 67.64 | 4 | 126,284 | 26.39 | – | 28,549 | 5.97 | – | – | – | – | 197,359 | 41.25 | 478,476 |
| Vermont | 117,149 | 62.66 | 3 | 68,174 | 36.47 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 48,975 | 26.20 | 186,947 |
| Virginia | 988,493 | 67.84 | 11 | 438,887 | 30.12 | – | 19,721 | 1.35 | – | – | – | 1 | 549,606 | 37.72 | 1,457,019 |
| Washington | 837,135 | 56.92 | 9 | 568,334 | 38.64 | – | 58,906 | 4.00 | – | 1,537 | 0.10 | – | 268,801 | 18.28 | 1,470,847 |
| West Virginia | 484,964 | 63.61 | 6 | 277,435 | 36.39 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 207,529 | 27.22 | 762,399 |
| Wisconsin | 989,430 | 53.40 | 11 | 810,174 | 43.72 | – | 47,525 | 2.56 | – | – | – | – | 179,256 | 9.67 | 1,852,890 |
| Wyoming | 100,464 | 69.01 | 3 | 44,358 | 30.47 | – | 748 | 0.51 | – | – | – | – | 56,106 | 38.54 | 145,570 |
| Total | 47,168,710 | 60.67 | 520 | 29,173,222 | 37.52 | 17 | 1,100,868 | 1.42 | 0 | 3,674 | 0.00 | 1 | 17,995,488 | 23.15 | 77,744,027 |
For the first time since 1828, Maine allowed its electoral votes to be split between candidates. Two electoral votes were awarded to the winner of the statewide race and one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district. This was the first time the Congressional District Method had been used since Michigan used it in 1892. Nixon won all four votes.[102]
States where margin of victory was more than 5 percentage points, but less than 15 percentage points (115 electoral votes):
|
Tipping point states:
Counties with highest percentage of the vote (Republican)
Counties with highest percentage of the vote (Democratic)
Counties with highest percentage of the vote (Other)
| The 1972 presidential vote by demographic subgroup | ||
|---|---|---|
| McGovern | Nixon | |
| Gender | ||
| Men | 37 | 63 |
| Women | 38 | 62 |
| Age | ||
| Under 30 | 48 | 52 |
| 30-49 | 33 | 67 |
| 50 or Older | 36 | 64 |
| Race | ||
| White | 32 | 68 |
| Non-White | 87 | 13 |
| Religion | ||
| Protestant | 30 | 70 |
| Catholic | 48 | 52 |
| Education | ||
| College | 37 | 63 |
| High School | 34 | 66 |
| Grade School | 49 | 51 |
| Occupation | ||
| Business | 31 | 69 |
| White Collar | 36 | 64 |
| Manual | 43 | 57 |
| Party ID | ||
| Republican | 5 | 95 |
| Democrat | 67 | 33 |
| Independent | 31 | 69 |
| Region | ||
| East | 42 | 58 |
| Midwest | 40 | 60 |
| South | 29 | 71 |
| West | 41 | 59 |
| Union Status | ||
| Union Family | 46 | 54 |
Nixon won 36 percent of the Democratic vote, according to anexit poll conducted forCBS News by George Fine Research, Inc.[105] This represents more than twice the percentage of voters who typically defect from their party in presidential elections. Nixon also became the first Republican presidential candidate in American history to win theRoman Catholic vote (53–46), and the first in recent history to win theblue-collar vote, which he won by a 5-to-4 margin. McGovern narrowly won the union vote (50–48), although this difference was within the survey's margin of error of 2 percentage points. McGovern also narrowly won the youth vote (i. e. those aged 18 to 24) 52–46, a narrower margin than many of his strategists had predicted. This was the first presidential election held after the ratification of the26th Amendment, lowering the minimum voting age to 18. Early on, the McGovern campaign also significantly over-estimated the number of young people who would vote in the election; they predicted that 18 million would have voted in total but exit polls indicate that the actual number was about 12 million. McGovern comfortably won among bothAfrican-American andJewish voters but by somewhat smaller margins than usual for a Democratic candidate.[105] McGovern won the African American vote by 87% to Nixon's 13%.[106]
On June 17, 1972, five months before election day, five men broke into theDemocratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel at theWatergate complex inWashington, D.C.. The resulting investigation led to the revelation of attempted cover-ups of the break-in within theNixon administration. What became known as the Watergate scandal eroded President Nixon's public and political support in his second term, and he resigned on August 9, 1974, in the face of probableimpeachment by the House of Representatives and removal from office by the Senate. As part of the continuing Watergate investigation in 1974–1975, federal prosecutors offered companies that had given illegal campaign contributions to President Nixon's re-election campaign lenient sentences if they came forward.[107] Many companies complied, includingNorthrop Grumman,3M,American Airlines, andBraniff Airlines.[107] By 1976, prosecutors had convicted 18 American corporations of contributing illegally to Nixon's campaign.[107] Despite this election delivering Nixon's greatest electoral triumph, Nixon later wrote in his memoirs that "it was one of the most frustrating and in many ways the least satisfying of all".[108]
Vice President Agnew alsoresigned in 1973, following an investigation of corruption in Maryland during Agnew's governorship and an ensuing controversy around Agnew's tax returns. He was replaced by Nixon (withCongressional confirmation) withGerald Ford, who ascended to the Presidency after Nixon's own resignation.
But of likely greater impediment was the sheer number of those involved, the many "senior advisors" like Clark Clifford and W. Averell Harriman and Luther B. Hodges, and the 19 senators, 34 congressmen and nine governors who had publicly endorsed Muskie.
Hughes has spent much of this week helping Muskie, whom Hughes endorsed early this year as the candidate most likely to unify the party and defeat President Nixon in November.
Gov. Milton Shapp of Pennsylvania endorsed Senator Edmund S. Muskie, dealing a sharp blow to Senator Hubert H. Humphrey's presidential ambitions.
Maddox, a booster of fellow Democrat Alabama Gov. George Wallace, said Thursday it may be best to turn the present party "over to the promoters of anarchy, Socialism and Communism" and form what he called a New Democratic Party of the People.
Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter endorsed Sen. Henry Jackson of Washington for the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday and said he would nominate Jackson at the convention tonight.
The all-time champion in most electoral votes won is, of course, Franklin Roosevelt, who handily won four presidential elections, cobbling together an impressive 1,876 total votes. In second is Richard Nixon, who got a large number of votes in three races: 1960, 1968 and 1972. In third is Ronald Reagan, who had big wins in 1980 and 1984. But he came into the 1980 election with an electoral vote in his past, too; in 1976, a faithless elector jumped the gun a bit and cast his ballot for Reagan four years before it mattered. (Reagan had challenged the nomination of incumbent President Gerald Ford that year — almost successfully.)
July 19, 1922 – October 21, 2012 U.S. Senator from South Dakota (1963–1981) U.S. Representatives from South Dakota (1957–1961) | ||
| Political career |
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| Electoral history | ||
| Legacy | ||
| Other | ||
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