United States presidential election, 1972

United States presidential election, 1972
All 538 electoral votes of the Electoral College; 270 electoral votes needed to win
Turnout	55.2%
	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

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. 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 stepping down 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 was also 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 nor a Democrat.

Democratic nomination

Overall, 15 people declared their candidacy for the Democratic Party nomination. They were:^[2]^[3]

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, vice presidential nominee in 1968
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
from South Dakota
Senator and
Former Vice President
Hubert Humphrey
from Minnesota
Governor
George Wallace
of Alabama
Senator
Edmund Muskie
from Maine
(Ended Primary Campaign)
(Apr. 28)
HenryJackson.jpg

Senator
Henry M. Jackson
from Washington
(Ended Primary Campaign)
(May 2)
Representative
Shirley Chisholm
from New York
Former Governor
Terry Sanford
of North Carolina
Representative
Wilbur Mills
from Arkansas
Senator
Vance Hartke
from Indiana
(Withdrew Mar. 26)
(Endorsed Humphrey)
New York City Mayor
John Lindsay
of New York
(Withdrew Apr. 4)
Former Senator
Eugene McCarthy
from Minnesota
(Withdrew May 22)
(Endorsed McGovern)
Representative
Patsy Mink
from Hawaii
(Withdrew May 24)
Los Angeles Mayor
Sam Yorty
of California
(Withdrew June)
(Endorsed Humphrey)
Senator
Fred Harris
from Oklahoma
(Withdrew Nov. 10, '71)
Delegate
Walter Fauntroy
from Washington, D.C.
(Withdrew May 2, 1972)

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.^[4] The favorite for the Democratic nomination then became Ed Muskie,^[5] the 1968 vice-presidential nominee.^[6] 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.^[7]

Nearly two years before the election, South Dakota Senator George McGovern entered the race as an anti-war, progressive candidate.^[8] 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.^[9]

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.^[10]^[11]

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 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. 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

Statewide contest by winner

Primaries popular vote results:^[12]

2

Notable endorsements

2

1972 Democratic National Convention

Video from the Florida conventions

Results:

2

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.^[22] The eventual winner was Senator Thomas Eagleton.

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.^[23] 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.^[24]^[25]^[26]^[27]^[28] 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 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.^[29] 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.