1972 United States presidential election

For related races, see 1972 United States elections.

Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 7, 1972. Incumbent Republican President Richard Nixon defeated Democratic Senator George McGovern in a landslide victory. With 60.7% of the popular vote, Richard Nixon won the largest share of the popular vote for the Republican Party in any presidential election.

1972 United States presidential election

November 7, 1972
538 members of the Electoral College 270 electoral votes needed to win
Opinion polls
Turnout	56.2% 6.3 pp
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 and blue denotes those won by McGovern/Shriver. Gold is the electoral vote for Hospers/Nathan by a Virginia faithless elector. Numbers indicate electoral votes cast by each state and the District of Columbia.
President before election Richard Nixon Republican Elected President Richard Nixon Republican

Nixon swept aside challenges from two Republican representatives in the Republican primaries to win renomination. McGovern, who had played a significant role in changing the Democratic nomination system after the 1968 presidential election, mobilized the anti-Vietnam War movement and other liberal supporters to win his party's nomination. Among the candidates he defeated were early front-runner Edmund Muskie, 1968 nominee Hubert Humphrey, governor George Wallace, and representative Shirley 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 a guaranteed minimum income. Nixon maintained a large lead in polling. Separately, Nixon's reelection committee broke into the Watergate complex to wiretap the Democratic National Committee's headquarters as part of the Watergate scandal. McGovern's general election campaign was damaged early on by revelations about his running mate Thomas Eagleton, as well as the perception that McGovern's platform was radical. Eagleton had undergone electroconvulsive therapy as a treatment for depression, and he was replaced by Sargent Shriver after only nineteen days on the ticket.

Nixon won the election in a landslide victory, taking 60.7% of the popular vote, carrying 49 states and becoming the first Republican to sweep the South, whereas McGovern took just 37.5% of the popular vote. This marked the most recent time that the Republican nominee carried Minnesota 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 the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, further expanding the electorate.

Nixon and his vice president Spiro Agnew both resigned from office within two years of the election. Agnew resigned due to a bribery scandal in October 1973, and Nixon resigned in the face of likely impeachment and conviction as a result of the Watergate scandal in August 1974. Republican House Minority Leader Gerald Ford replaced Agnew as vice president in December 1973, and thus replaced Nixon as president in August 1974. Ford remains the only person in American history to become president without winning an election for president or vice president.

Republican nomination

Main article: 1972 Republican Party presidential primaries

Republican candidates:

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

Republican Party (United States) 1972 Republican Party ticket
Richard Nixon	Spiro Agnew
for President	for Vice President
37th President of the United States (1969–1974)	39th Vice President of the United States (1969–1973)
Campaign

Primaries

Nixon was a popular incumbent president in 1972, as he was credited with opening the People's Republic of China as a result of his visit that year, and achieving détente with the Soviet Union. Polls showed that Nixon held a strong lead in the Republican primaries. He was challenged by two candidates: liberal Pete McCloskey from California, and conservative John Ashbrook from 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%. 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 such action would incur too great a risk of losing Agnew's base of conservative supporters.

Primary results

1972 Republican Party presidential primaries

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

Convention

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

Democratic nomination

Main article: 1972 Democratic Party presidential primaries

Democratic Party (United States) 1972 Democratic Party ticket
George McGovern	Sargent Shriver
for President	for Vice President
U.S. Senator from South Dakota (1963–1981)	21st U.S. Ambassador to France (1968–1970)
Campaign

Candidates in this section are sorted by performance in the delegate contests
Hubert Humphrey	George Wallace	Edmund Muskie	Henry M. Jackson	Wilbur Mills	Shirley Chisholm	Terry Sanford
U.S. Vice President from Minnesota (1965–1969)	Governor of Alabama (1961–1967; 1971–1979)	U.S. Senator from Maine (1959–1980)	U.S. Senator from Washington (1953–1983)	U.S. Representative from Arkansas (1939–1977)	U.S. Representative from New York (1969–1983)	Governor of North Carolina (1961–1965)
Campaign	Campaign	Campaign	Campaign	Campaign	Campaign	Campaign
AC: January 10, 1972 4,119,230 votes 386.30 PD	AC: January 13, 1972 3,755,424 votes 377.00 PD	AC: January 4, 1972 SC: April 27, 1972 1,838,314 votes 209.10 PD	AC: November 19, 1971 SC: May 2, 1972 504,596 votes 53.75 PD	AC: February 11, 1972 37,401 votes 30.55 PD	AC: January 25, 1972 430,733 votes 28.65 PD	AC: March 8, 1972 331,415 votes 27 PD
John Lindsay	Eugene McCarthy	Sam Yorty	Vance Hartke	Patsy Mink	Fred R. Harris
Mayor of New York from New York (1966–1973)	U.S. Senator from Minnesota (1959–1971)	Mayor of Los Angeles from California (1961–1973)	U.S. Senator from Indiana (1959–1977)	U.S. Representative from Hawaii (1965–1977)	U.S. Senator from Oklahoma (1964–1973)
Campaign	Campaign	Campaign	Campaign	Campaign	Campaign
AC: December 28, 1971 W: April 4, 1972 196,406 votes 6 PD	AC: December 17, 1971 553,352 votes	AC: November 16, 1971 W: June 5, 1972 E-HH: June 5, 1972 79,446 votes	AC: January 3, 1972 W: March 26, 1972 E-HH: March 26, 1972 11,798 votes	W: May 24, 1972 8,286 votes	AC: September 24, 1971 W: November 10, 1971

Primaries

Senate Majority Whip Ted Kennedy, the youngest brother of late President John F. Kennedy and late United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was the favorite to win the 1972 nomination, but he announced he would not be a candidate. The favorite for the Democratic nomination then became Maine Senator Ed Muskie, the 1968 vice-presidential nominee. 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.

Nearly two years before the election, South Dakota Senator George McGovern entered the race as an anti-war, progressive candidate. 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.

On April 25, George McGovern won the Massachusetts primary. Two days later, journalist Robert 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.

Alabama Governor George Wallace, an infamous segregationist who ran on a third-party ticket in 1968, did well in the South (winning nearly every county in the Florida primary) and among alienated and dissatisfied voters in the North. 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 five bullets and left paralyzed 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 of 1968. 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 of superdelegates a decade later, in order to reduce the nomination chances of outsiders such as McGovern and Jimmy Carter.

Primary results

Statewide contest by winner

  No primary held

  Shirley Chisholm

  Hubert Humphrey

  Henry M. Jackson

  George McGovern

  Wilbur Mills

  Edmund Muskie

  George Wallace

1972 Democratic Party presidential primaries

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

Notable endorsements

Edmund Muskie

• Former Governor of and Secretary of Commerce W. Averell Harriman from New York
• Senator Harold Hughes from Iowa
• Senator Birch Bayh from Indiana
• Senator Adlai Stevenson III from Illinois
• Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska
• Former Senator Stephen M. Young from Ohio
• Governor Milton Shapp of Pennsylvania
• Former Governor Michael DiSalle of Ohio
• Ohio State Treasurer Gertrude W. Donahey
• Astronaut John Glenn from Ohio

George McGovern

• Senator Frank Church from Idaho

George Wallace

• Former Governor Lester Maddox of Georgia

Shirley Chisholm

• Representative Ron Dellums from California
• Feminist leader and author Betty Friedan
• Feminist leader, journalist, and DNC official Gloria Steinem

Terry Sanford

• Former President Lyndon B. Johnson from Texas

Henry M. Jackson

• Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia

1972 Democratic National Convention

Video from the Florida conventions

Main article: 1972 Democratic National Convention

Results:

• George McGovern – 1864.95
• Henry M. Jackson – 525
• George Wallace – 381.7
• Shirley Chisholm – 151.95
• Terry Sanford – 77.5
• Hubert Humphrey – 66.7
• Wilbur Mills – 33.8
• Edmund Muskie – 24.3
• Ted Kennedy – 12.7
• Sam Yorty – 10
• Wayne Hays – 5
• John Lindsay – 5
• Fred Harris – 2
• Eugene McCarthy – 2
• Walter Mondale – 2
• Ramsey Clark – 1
• Walter Fauntroy – 1
• Vance Hartke – 1
• Harold Hughes – 1
• Patsy Mink – 1

Vice presidential vote

Most polls showed McGovern running well behind incumbent President Richard Nixon, except when McGovern was paired with Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. McGovern and his campaign brain trust lobbied Kennedy heavily to accept the bid to be McGovern's running mate, but he continually refused their advances, and instead suggested U.S. Representative (and House Ways and Means Committee chairman) Wilbur Mills from Arkansas and Boston Mayor Kevin White. Offers were then made to Hubert Humphrey, Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff, and Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale, all of whom turned it down. Finally, the vice presidential slot was offered to Senator Thomas Eagleton from Missouri, who accepted the offer.

With hundreds of delegates 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. A grassroots attempt to displace Eagleton in favor of Texas state representative Frances Farenthold gained significant traction, though was ultimately unable to change the outcome of the vote.

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 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. 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. 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 prominent Democrats to run for 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. 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.

Third parties

1972 American Independent Party ticket
John G. Schmitz	Thomas J. Anderson
for President	for Vice President
U.S. Representative from California's 35th district (1970–1973)	Magazine publisher; conservative speaker
Campaign

Other Candidates
Lester Maddox	Thomas J. Anderson	George Wallace
Lieutenant Governor of Georgia (1971–1975) Governor of Georgia (1967–1971)	Magazine publisher; conservative speaker	Governor of Alabama (1963–1967, 1971–1979) 1968 AIP Presidential Nominee
Campaign	Campaign	Campaign
56 votes	24 votes	8 votes

The only major third party candidate in the 1972 election was conservative Republican Representative John G. Schmitz, who ran on the American Independent 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, although he did finish ahead of McGovern in four of the most conservative Idaho counties. Schmitz's performance in archconservative Jefferson County was the best by a third-party Presidential candidate in any free or postbellum state county since 1936 when William Lemke reached over twenty-eight percent of the vote in the North Dakota counties of Burke, Sheridan and Hettinger. Schmitz was endorsed by fellow John Birch Society member Walter Brennan, who also served as finance chairman for his campaign.

John Hospers and Theodora "Tonie" Nathan of the newly formed Libertarian Party were on the ballot only in Colorado and Washington, 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 from Virginia from a Republican faithless elector (see below). The Libertarian vice-presidential nominee Tonie Nathan became the first Jew and the first woman in U.S. history to receive an Electoral College vote.

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

Polling aggregation

The following graph depicts the standing of each candidate in the poll aggregators from February 1972 to Election Day.

  Richard Nixon

  George McGovern

  George Wallace

Polling

See also: Nationwide opinion polling for the 1972 United States presidential election

Poll source	Date(s) administered	Richard Nixon (R)	George McGovern (D)	George Wallace (AI)	Other	Undecided	Margin
Election Results	November 7, 1972	60.67%	37.52%	-	1.81%	-	23.15
Harris	November 2–4, 1972	59%	35%	-	-	6%	24
Gallup	November 2-4, 1972	61%	35%	-	1%	3%	26
Harris	October 24–26, 1972	60%	32%	-	-	8%	28
Harris	October 17–19, 1972	59%	34%	-	-	7%	25
Gallup	October 13-16, 1972	59%	36%	-	-	5%	23
Gallup	Sep. 29-Oct. 9, 1972	60%	34%	-	1%	5%	26
Harris	October 3–5, 1972	60%	33%	-	-	7%	27
Gallup	September 22-25, 1972	61%	33%	-	1%	5%	28
Harris	September 19–21, 1972	59%	31%	-	-	10%	28
Harris	Aug. 30–Sep. 1, 1972	63%	29%	-	-	8%	34
Gallup	August 25-28, 1972	61%	36%	-	-	3%	25
Gallup	August 26-27, 1972	64%	30%	-	-	6%	34
August 21–23: Republican National Convention
Gallup	August 4-7, 1972	57%	31%	-	-	12%	26
Harris	August 2–3, 1972	57%	34%	-	-	9%	23
Gallup	July 14-17, 1972	56%	37%	-	-	7%	19
July 10–13: Democratic National Convention
Harris	July 1–6, 1972	55%	35%	-	-	10%	20
Gallup	June 16-19, 1972	45%	32%	18%	-	5%	13
		53%	37%	-	-	10%	16
Harris	June 7–10, 1972	45%	33%	17%	-	5%	12
		54%	38%	-	-	8%	16
Gallup	May 26-29, 1972	43%	30%	19%	-	8%	13
		53%	34%	-	-	13%	19
Harris	May 9–10, 1972	40%	35%	17%	-	8%	5
		48%	41%	-	-	11%	7
Gallup	Apr. 28-May 1, 1972	43%	35%	15%	-	7%	8
		49%	39%	-	-	12%	10
Gallup	April 21-24, 1972	45%	32%	16%	-	7%	13
Gallup	April 14-17, 1972	46%	31%	15%	-	8%	15
Harris	April 1–7, 1972	47%	29%	16%	-	8%	18
		54%	34%	-	-	12%	20
Harris	Feb. 28 – Mar. 7, 1972	53%	28%	13%	-	6%	25
		59%	32%	-	-	9%	27
Gallup	February 4-7, 1972	49%	34%	11%	-	6%	15
Harris	November, 1971	49%	31%	12%	-	8%	18
Harris	August 24-27, 1971	48%	33%	13%	-	6%	15
Harris	May, 1971	47%	33%	11%	-	9%	14
Harris	April, 1971	46%	36%	13%	-	5%	10
Harris	February, 1971	45%	34%	12%	-	9%	11

Campaign

Richard Nixon during an August 1972 campaign stop

George McGovern speaking at an October 1972 campaign rally

McGovern ran on a platform of immediately ending the Vietnam War and instituting a radical guaranteed 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, Nixon led 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, select audiences, leaving much of the retail campaigning to surrogates like Vice President Agnew. Nixon did not, by design, try to extend his coattails to Republican congressional or gubernatorial candidates, preferring to pad his own margin of victory.

Results

Election results by county.

  Richard Nixon

  George McGovern

Results by congressional district.

Nixon's percentage of the popular vote was only marginally 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. McGovern garnered only 37.5 percent of the national popular vote, the lowest share received by a Democratic Party nominee since John W. Davis won only 28.8 percent of the vote in the 1924 election. The only major party candidate since 1972 to receive less than 40 percent of the vote was Republican incumbent President George H. W. Bush who won 37.4 percent of the vote in the 1992 election, a race that (as in 1924) was impacted by a strong third-party vote. 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 new Twenty-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. This was the first election 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 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 (though 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. Notably, Nixon became the first Republican to ever win two terms in the White House without carrying Massachusetts at least once, and the same feat would later be duplicated by George W. Bush who won both the 2000 and 2004 elections without winning Massachusetts either time. 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 vs. California's 45. Additionally, this remains the last one in which Minnesota was carried by the Republican candidate.

McGovern won a mere 130 counties, plus the District of Columbia and four county-equivalents in Alaska, easily the fewest counties won by any major-party presidential nominee since the advent of popular presidential elections. In nineteen states, McGovern failed to carry a single county; he carried a mere one county-equivalent in a further nine states, and just two counties in a further seven. In contrast to Walter Mondale's narrow 1984 win in Minnesota, McGovern comfortably did win Massachusetts, but lost every other state by no less than five percentage points, as well as 45 states by more than ten percentage points – the exceptions being Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and his home state of South Dakota. This election also made Nixon the second former vice president in American history to serve two terms back-to-back, after Thomas Jefferson in 1800 and 1804, as well as the only two-term Vice President to be elected President twice.

Since McGovern carried only one state, bumper stickers reading "Nixon 49 America 1", "Don't Blame Me, I'm From Massachusetts", and "Massachusetts: The One And Only" were popular for a short time in Massachusetts.

Nixon managed to win 18% of the African American vote (Gerald Ford would get 16% in 1976). Until 2024, he was the only Republican in modern times to threaten the oldest extant Democratic stronghold of South Texas: this is the most recent election in which the Republicans have won Dimmit County, Texas, the only time Republicans carried La Salle County between William McKinley in 1900 and Donald Trump in 2020, and one of only two occasions since Theodore Roosevelt in 1904 that Republicans have gained a majority in Presidio County. The 1972 election was also the most recent time several highly populous urban counties – including Cook in Illinois, Orleans in Louisiana, Hennepin in Minnesota, Cuyahoga in Ohio, Durham in North Carolina, Queens in New York, and Prince George's in Maryland – have voted Republican.

The Wallace vote had also been crucial to Nixon being able to sweep the states that had narrowly held out against him in 1968 (Texas, Maryland, and West Virginia), as well as the states Wallace won himself (Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia). The pro-Wallace group of voters had only given AIP nominee John Schmitz a depressing 2.4% of its support, while 19.1% backed McGovern, and the majority 78.5% broke for Nixon.

Nixon, who became term-limited under the provisions of the Twenty-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 Donald 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 Thomas Jefferson, Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, Grover Cleveland, William Jennings Bryan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Donald 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).

Electoral results

Presidential candidate	Party	Home state	Popular vote		Electoral vote	Running mate
			Count	Percentage		Vice-presidential candidate	Home state	Electoral vote
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	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	Theodora Nathan	Oregon	1
Other			81,575	0.10%	—	Other		—
Total			77,744,030	100%	538			538
Needed to win					270			270

John Hospers received one faithless electoral vote from Virginia.

Popular vote Nixon   60.67% McGovern   37.52% Schmitz   1.42% Others   0.39%

Electoral vote Nixon   96.65% McGovern   3.16% Hospers   0.19%

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

Results by state

Legend

Legend

States/districts won by Nixon/Agnew
States/districts won by McGovern/Shriver
†	At-large results (Maine used the Congressional District Method)

Outcomes of the 1972 United States presidential election by state

		Richard Nixon Republican			George McGovern Democratic			John Schmitz American Independent			John Hospers Libertarian			Margin		State Total
State	electoral votes	#	%	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		980	0.01		1,126,249	13.46	8,367,862	CA
Colorado	7	597,189	62.61	7	329,980	34.59		17,269	1.81		1,111	0.12		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 †	2	256,458	61.46	2	160,584	38.48		117	0.03		1	0.00		95,874	22.98	417,271	ME
Maine-1	1	135,388	61.42	1	85,028	38.58		Unknown	Unknown		Unknown	Unknown		50,360	22.85	220,416	ME1
Maine-2	1	121,120	61.58	1	75,556	38.42		Unknown	Unknown		Unknown	Unknown		45,564	23.17	196,676	ME2
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		43	0.00		−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		2	0.00		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				1	549,606	37.72	1,457,019	VA
Washington	9	837,135	56.92	9	568,334	38.64		58,906	4.00		1,537	0.10		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	0	3,674	0.00	1	17,995,488	23.15	77,744,027	US

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.

States that flipped from Democratic to Republican

• Connecticut
• Hawaii
• Maine
• Maryland
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• New York
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• Texas
• Washington
• West Virginia

States that flipped from American Independent to Republican

• Georgia
• Louisiana
• Alabama
• Mississippi
• Arkansas

Close states

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

1. Minnesota, 5.51% (95,923 votes)
2. Rhode Island, 6.19% (25,738 votes)
3. South Dakota, 8.63% (26,531 votes)
4. Massachusetts, 8.97% (220,462 votes)
5. Wisconsin, 9.67% (179,256 votes)

Tipping point states:

1. Ohio, 21.56% (882,938 votes) (tipping point for a Nixon victory)
2. Maine-1, 22.85% (50,360 votes) (tipping point for a McGovern victory)

Statistics

Counties with highest percentage of the vote (Republican)

1. Dade County, Georgia 93.45%
2. Glascock County, Georgia 93.38%
3. George County, Mississippi 92.90%
4. Holmes County, Florida 92.51%
5. Smith County, Mississippi 92.35%

Counties with highest percentage of the vote (Democratic)

1. Duval County, Texas 85.68%
2. Washington, D. C. 78.10%
3. Shannon County, South Dakota 77.34%
4. Greene County, Alabama 68.32%
5. Charles City County, Virginia 67.84%

Counties with highest percentage of the vote (Other)

1. Jefferson County, Idaho 27.51%
2. Lemhi County, Idaho 19.77%
3. Fremont County, Idaho 19.32%
4. Bonneville County, Idaho 18.97%
5. Madison County, Idaho 17.04%

Voter demographics

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 an exit poll conducted for CBS News by George Fine Research, Inc. 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 the Roman Catholic vote (53–46), and the first in recent history to win the blue-collar vote, which he won by a 5-to-4 margin. McGovern narrowly won the union vote (50–48), though 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. 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 did win comfortably among both African-American and Jewish voters, but by somewhat smaller margins than usual for a Democratic candidate. McGovern won the African American vote by 87% to Nixon's 13%.

Aftermath

Main article: Watergate scandal

On June 17, 1972, five months before election day, five men broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate hotel in Washington, D. C.; the resulting investigation led to the revelation of attempted cover-ups of the break-in within the Nixon 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 probable impeachment 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. Many companies complied, including Northrop Grumman, 3M, American Airlines, and Braniff Airlines. By 1976, prosecutors had convicted 18 American corporations of contributing illegally to Nixon's campaign.

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".

See also

• 1972 United States House of Representatives elections
• 1972 United States Senate elections
• 1972 United States gubernatorial elections
• George McGovern 1972 presidential campaign
• Second inauguration of Richard Nixon
• 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.

Bibliography and further reading

• Alexander, Herbert E. Financing the 1972 Election (1976) online
• Giglio, James N. (2009). "The Eagleton Affair: Thomas Eagleton, George McGovern, and the 1972 Vice Presidential Nomination". Presidential Studies Quarterly. 39 (4): 647–676. doi:10.1111/j.1741-5705.2009.03731.x.
• Graebner, Norman A. (1973). "Presidential Politics in a Divided America: 1972". Australian Journal of Politics and History. 19 (1): 28–47. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8497.1973.tb00722.x.
• Hofstetter, C. Richard; Zukin, Cliff (1979). "TV Network News and Advertising in the Nixon and McGovern Campaigns". Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. 56 (1): 106–152. doi:10.1177/107769907905600117. S2CID 144048423.
  • Hofstetter, C. Richard. Bias in the news: Network television coverage of the 1972 election campaign (Ohio State University Press, 1976) online
• Johnstone, Andrew, and Andrew Priest, eds. US Presidential Elections and Foreign Policy: Candidates, Campaigns, and Global Politics from FDR to Bill Clinton (2017) pp 203–228. online
• Miller, Arthur H., et al. "A majority party in disarray: Policy polarization in the 1972 election." American Political Science Review 70.3 (1976): 753–778; widely cited; online
• Nicholas, H. G. (1973). "The 1972 Elections". Journal of American Studies. 7 (1): 1–15. doi:10.1017/S0021875800012585. S2CID 145606732.
• Perry, James M. Us & them: how the press covered the 1972 election (1973) online
• Simons, Herbert W., James W. Chesebro, and C. Jack Orr. "A movement perspective on the 1972 presidential election." Quarterly Journal of Speech 59.2 (1973): 168–179. online Archived September 23, 2022, at the Wayback Machine
• Trent, Judith S., and Jimmie D. Trent. "The rhetoric of the challenger: George Stanley McGovern." Communication Studies 25.1 (1974): 11–18.
• White, Theodore H. (1973). The Making of the President, 1972. New York: Atheneum. ISBN 0-689-10553-3.

Primary sources

• Chester, Edward W. (1977). A guide to political platforms.
• Porter, Kirk H. and Donald Bruce Johnson, eds. National party platforms, 1840–1972 (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)
• 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