Presidential Election of 1972

The Presidential Election of 1972 was a momentous election in American history not only because it was a massive landslide but also because of the great Watergate scandal that emerged from it.

Richard Nixon

The Election of 1972 was the forty-seventh Presidential Election of the United States of America. It took place on November 7th, 1972. Richard Nixon, a Republican from California was the incumbent president having won the Election of 1968. His opponent was George McGovern, a Democrat from South Dakota. Nixon’s running mate was Spiro Agnew of Maryland, while McGovern’s running mate was Sargent Shriver, also from Maryland, and a member of the Kennedy family.

George McGovern

This Election was significant in that it was the first presidential election in which people ages eighteen to twenty could vote as a result of the the recently passed Twenty-sixth Amendment.

Nixon competed for the Republican nomination with John Ashbrook, and Pete McCloskey, but easily won. George McGovern competed against fourteen other Democrats including Ted Kennedy, the brother of John F. Kennedy, and ended up winning the nomination.

McGovern was strongly anti-war and was considered a radical by many. However, his campaign lacked a clear message. His original running mate was Thomas Eagleton who ended up having to drop out for health-related reasons. Following this, McGovern had a great deal of trouble finding a new running mate until Shriver finally agreed to run with him. These reasons are part of the reasons why his loss was so lopsided.

Campaign Map

The election was a landslide. Nixon received 520 electoral votes while McGovern only received 17 (14 from Massachusetts and 3 from the District of Columbia). Nixon also received 60.7% of the popular vote (47,168,710) while McGovern got 37.5% of the popular vote (29,173,222). The Libertarian, John Hospers, also received one electoral vote from Virginia from a faithless elector. 55.2% of the voting population voted.

Finally, the Election of 1972 would not be complete without a brief mention of the Watergate Scandal. On June 17, 1972, several men broke into the Democratic National Committee and attempted to tap the Democrat’s phones. However, they were caught in the process. Nixon immediately denied that he or his cabinet had any involvement in the break-in. However, as it turned out, the men were sent by a paranoid Nixon. It ended up taking two years for the truth of what happened during the 1972 election to surface. When it did, one of the greatest presidential scandals ensued.

Check out the video below for a deeper look into this Presidential Election: