# 1972 Presidential Election [[Richard Nixon]]'s reelection landslide — one of the largest [[Electoral College]] margins in American history. Nixon defeated Senator [[George McGovern]] (South Dakota), the antiwar progressive candidate of the post-1968 Democratic Party reform movement, by 520 to 17 electoral votes; McGovern carried only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. The popular vote was 60.7% to 37.5%, a 23.2-point margin. The McGovern campaign was wrecked by internal Democratic divisions, the VP-vetting Eagleton disaster (Senator Tom Eagleton was dropped from the ticket in August after his prior treatment for clinical depression was revealed), and a general electorate perception that McGovern represented the cultural revolution rather than the [[New Deal]] Democratic coalition. The election was conducted with the **Watergate scandal already in motion** — the June 17, 1972 break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters had occurred five months before Election Day — but with the cover-up still mostly intact. The election occurred 21 months before Nixon's August 1974 resignation. The 1972 mandate is one of the most rapidly-collapsed political mandates in American history. The 1972 election also confirmed the **[[Southern Strategy]] realignment** — Nixon won every Southern state including Wallace's 1968 Deep South votes, demonstrating that the post-[[Civil Rights Act]] Republican coalition could function as a structural electoral majority. The New Deal coalition was operationally finished. ## Result - **[[Richard Nixon]]** (Republican) — 520 electoral votes, 60.7% popular (47,168,710 votes) - **George McGovern** (Democrat) — 17 electoral votes (Massachusetts, DC), 37.5% popular - John G. Schmitz (American Independent, post-Wallace) — 0 electoral votes, 1.4% popular - Total: 538 electoral votes - One faithless elector (Virginia) voted for Libertarian John Hospers - Turnout: 55.2% ## Right-wing relevance The 1972 election is the structural confirmation of the Southern-Strategy realignment. The Nixon coalition — Southern whites who had been Wallace voters in 1968, Northern blue-collar "Reagan Democrats" (the term wouldn't enter currency until 1980 but the constituency was forming), traditional Republican constituencies, and a substantial slice of the formerly-Democratic Catholic and Eastern European urban electorate — is recognizable as the structural ancestor of the post-Reagan Republican coalition. The 1972 result also became the operational case study in **how thoroughly the Democratic Party could lose** when its nominee was perceived as out of step with the broader electorate — a case study Democratic strategists internalized as a warning against post-1968 progressive nominees (the DLC New Democrats / Clinton 1992 coalition were a direct strategic response). The Watergate context is critical: the 1972 mandate evaporated within two years. The 1974 midterms (Watergate-era Democratic gains) and the 1976 Carter victory undid significant parts of the 1972 alignment temporarily; the 1980 Reagan victory rebuilt and ratified the post-1968 Republican coalition that 1972 had previewed. ## Connections - [[Richard Nixon]] — Reelected; resigned 21 months later. - [[George Wallace]] — Did not run as third-party candidate in 1972 (was shot and paralyzed during a Maryland primary campaign event in May 1972); his constituency went to Nixon. ---