2016 2012 2008 2004 2000 1996 1992 1988 1984 1980 1976 1972. The president will be better positioned for another Electoral College victory if he can pry loose a … Based on 1970 census results, California replaces New York with most electoral votes; 26th Amendment ratified in this cycle: 18 year olds allowed to vote; Vice-Presidential Succession: Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, and was replaced by Vice-President Gerald R. Ford Nixon won Virginia; however one elector cast a vote for John Hospers It was held on November 7, 1972. 1972, Democrat: 17 Nixon carried 49 states and 60.7% of the popular vote. However, they did receive one Electoral College vote from Virginia from a Republican faithless elector (see below). [32][33][34][35][36] McGovern had initially claimed that he would back Eagleton "1000 percent", only to ask Eagleton to withdraw three days later. 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. The 1972 presidential election was the first since the ratification of the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. 1988 1984 2008 Democrat & Republican past results. There was … McCloskey ran as an anti-war candidate, while Ashbrook opposed Nixon's détente policies towards China and the Soviet Union. Nixon won a majority vote in 49 states, including McGovern's home state of South Dakota. ", Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, Australian Journal of Politics and History, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, United States presidential election of 1972, The Election Wall's 1972 Election Video Page, 1972 popular vote by states (with bar graphs), Campaign commercials from the 1972 election, C-SPAN segment on 1972 campaign commercials, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1972_United_States_presidential_election&oldid=987121788, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. The split can be edited in this table. Nonetheless, the press made frequent references to his "shock therapy", and McGovern feared that this would detract from his campaign platform. 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. Within two years of the election, both Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned from office: the former in August 1974, due to Watergate, the latter in October 1973, due to a separate corruption charge. 2004 ABOUT US McGovern failed to carry a single county in Arkansas, McGovern carried only one county-equivalent in Arizona (, A faithless Republican elector voted for the Libertarian ticket: Hospers–Nathan, United States presidential election, 1972, Committee for the Re-Election of the President, 1972 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, 1972 United States House of Representatives elections, 1972 United States gubernatorial elections, George McGovern 1972 presidential campaign, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections", "New Hampshire Primary historical past election results. As part of the continuing Watergate investigation in 1974–75, federal prosecutors offered companies that had given illegal campaign contributions to President Nixon's re-election campaign lenient sentences if they came forward. Seven members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War were brought on federal charges for conspiring to disrupt the Republican convention. John McCain, Hillary Clinton winners", "Hawai'i, nation lose "a powerful voice" | The Honolulu Advertiser | Hawaii's Newspaper", "The Democrat who cried (maybe) in New Hampshire and lost the presidential nomination", "McGovern Enters '72 Race, Pledging Troop Withdrawal", "Shirley Chisholm's 1972 Presidential Campaign", "United States presidential election of 1972", "POV – Chisholm '72 . [5] They were acquitted by a federal jury in Gainesville, Florida. Alabama Governor George Wallace, an anti-integrationist, did well in the South (winning nearly every county in the Florida primary) and among alienated and dissatisfied voters in the North. Only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia voted for the challenger, resulting in an even more lopsided Electoral College tally. [53] Many companies complied, including Northrop Grumman, 3M, American Airlines and Braniff Airlines. Clinton [53], Post-election investigations into the Watergate break-in. 2012 2008 McGovern ran on a platform of immediately ending the Vietnam War and instituting guaranteed minimum incomes for the nation's poor. Nixon maintained a large and consistent lead in polling. 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. Nixon led in the polls by large margins throughout the entire campaign. Clinton carried 32 states and 43% of the popular vote. The electoral map shown below depicts the results of the 1976 U.S. presidential election in which Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford. [31] 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. google_ad_slot = "8190975221"; Choose a presidential election from the menu to view candidates and an electoral map, as well as election highlights. The electoral map shown below depicts the results of the 1992 U.S. [13] 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. Nixon, who became term limited under the provisions of the Twenty-second Amendment as a result of his victory, became the first (and, as of 2020, only) presidential candidate to win a significant number of electoral votes in three presidential elections since ratification of that Amendment. 7 days ago. 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. They were:[6][7], 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. google_ad_client = "pub-0687912793306137"; Muskie made an emotional defense of his wife in a speech outside the newspaper's offices during a snowstorm. The Libertarian vice-presidential nominee Theodora "Tonie" Nathan became the first Jewish person and the first woman in U.S. history to receive an Electoral College vote.[40]. 2000 1996 1992 Gerald Ford succeeded Agnew as vice president, then in the following year succeeded Nixon as president, making him the only U.S. president in history to not be elected to the office on a presidential ticket. 1972, Democrat : All Rights Reserved. Incumbent Republican President Richard Nixon from California defeated Democratic U.S. Separately, Nixon's reelection committee broke into the Watergate complex to wiretap the Democratic National Committee's headquarters, a scandal that would later be known as "Watergate". All Rights Reserved. Choose a presidential election from the menu to view candidates and an electoral map, as well as election highlights. Nearly two years before the election, South Dakota Senator George McGovern entered the race as an anti-war, progressive candidate. 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." 2008 2004 2000 1996 1992 1988 1984 1980 1976 1972. McGovern did win comfortably among both African-American and Jewish voters, but by somewhat smaller margins than usual for a Democratic candidate.[52]. 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 only 37.4 percent of the vote in the 1992 election, with both the 1924 and 1992 races complicated by a strong third party vote.[41]. States shown here did not allocate all their available electoral votes to one candidate. 1972 Election Facts. [8] The favorite for the Democratic nomination then became Senator Ed Muskie,[9] the 1968 vice-presidential nominee. The electoral map shown below depicts the results of the 1972 U.S. presidential election in which Richard Nixon defeated George McGovern. [47] He also remains the only Republican in modern times to threaten the oldest extant Democratic stronghold of South Texas: this is the last election when the Republicans have won Hidalgo or Dimmit Counties, the only time Republicans have won La Salle County since William McKinley in 1900, and one of only two occasions since Theodore Roosevelt in 1904[f] that Republicans have gained a majority in Presidio County. It is a way to view the relative competitiveness of each state. Based on 1970 census results, California replaces New York with most electoral votes; 26th Amendment ratified in this cycle: 18 year olds allowed to vote; Vice-Presidential Succession: Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, and was replaced by Vice-President Gerald R. Ford Nixon won Virginia; however one elector cast a vote for John Hospers Nixon won the election in a landslide, taking 60.7% of the popular vote and carrying 49 states while being the first Republican to sweep the South. [43] More significantly, the 1972 election is the last 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.[43]. Nixon carried 49 states and 60.7% of the popular vote. 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.