1972 Electoral Map

1972 Election Results

Richard Nixon defeated George McGovern in a 49-state landslide, winning 520 electoral votes to 17 and about 61% of the popular vote. McGovern carried only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia; a Republican elector in Virginia cast the remaining electoral vote for Libertarian John Hospers.

The transformation from 1968 was striking. Nixon had barely won the popular vote four years earlier. This time, he carried every state he had won before, all five states that had backed George Wallace, and nearly all of Hubert Humphrey’s states, including New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Texas.

No close state determined the outcome. Nixon united the previously divided South while breaking deeply into the Democrats’ Northern base. Even McGovern’s home state of South Dakota went Republican.

Nixon benefited from his opening to China, diplomacy with the Soviet Union and the prospect of a Vietnam peace agreement. McGovern’s antiwar candidacy struggled to unite Democrats, and his replacement of running mate Thomas Eagleton damaged confidence in his judgment. The Watergate break-in had occurred months earlier, but the scandal had not yet overwhelmed the presidency. Nixon’s electoral position looked commanding; less than two years later, he would resign.