1972 United States presidential election (Nixon's Nightmare)

The 1972 United States presidential election was the 47th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 7, 1972. Democratic Senator George McGovern of South Dakota defeated incumbent Republican President Richard Nixon. This was the first time an incumbent president lost re-election since Herbert Hoover was defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 election.

Nixon swept aside challenges from two Republican congressmen in the 1972 Republican primaries to win renomination. McGovern, who had played a significant role in changing the Democratic nomination system after the 1968 election, mobilized the anti–Vietnam War movement and other liberal supporters to win his party's nomination. Among the candidates he defeated were early front-runner Edmund Muskie, 1968 nominee Hubert Humphrey, and Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the first African American person to run for a major party's presidential nomination.

Nixon emphasized the strong economy and his success in foreign affairs. At the same time, McGovern ran on a platform calling for an immediate end to the Vietnam War, universal healthcare, and the institution of a guaranteed minimum income. Nixon maintained a large, and consistent, lead in polling. 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". McGovern's campaign was considered "dead in the water" until he successfully lobbied Ted Kennedy to be his running mate, McGovern had been polling badly in every poll in which Kennedy was not placed as the vice presidential nominee. This led McGovern to work heavily to get Kennedy to accept the nomination. Kennedy originally had no plans to accept the nomination, but McGovern's promise to enact the Health Security Act pushed Kennedy into accepting the nomination.

McGovern won the election in an upset victory, while winning 50.1% of the popular vote to Nixon's 48.3%, McGovern won just 23 states to Nixon's 27. John G. Schmitz of the American Independent Party won 1.4% of the vote. The 1972 presidential election was the first since the ratification of the 26th Amendment. Due to the Watergate Scandal, Nixon would be charged with obstruction of justice, abuse of the powers of the president, and contempt of congress in 1973. The trial was widely publicized and eventually led to Nixon's acquittal. Spiro Agnew would be tried for tax evasion and corruption in 1973, Agnew would not serve jail time due to Agnew agreeing to a plea deal.

Democratic nomination
Overall, fifteen people declared their candidacy for the Democratic Party nomination. They were:
 * George McGovern, senator from South Dakota
 * Hubert Humphrey, senator from Minnesota, former vice president, and 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
 * 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
 * Patsy Mink, representative of Hawaii's 2nd congressional district
 * Walter Fauntroy, Delegate from Washington, D. C.

Primaries
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. The favorite for the Democratic nomination then became Senator Ed Muskie, the 1968 vice-presidential nominee. 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.

Nearly two years before the election, South Dakota Senator George McGovern entered the race as an anti-war, progressive candidate. 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 person to run for the Democratic presidential nomination.

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.

Alabama Governor George Wallace, an infamous segregationist who ran on a third-party ticket in 1968, did well in the South (winning nearly every county in the Florida primary) and among alienated and dissatisfied voters in the North. 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 grass-roots 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. 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. Some of the principles of the McGovern Commission have lasted throughout every subsequent nomination contest, but the Hunt Commission instituted the selection of Superdelegates a decade later, in order to reduce the nomination chances of outsiders like McGovern and Carter.

Notable endorsements
• Edmund Muskie

• Former Governor of and Secretary of Commerce W. Averell Harriman from New York

• Senator Harold Hughes from Iowa

• Senator Birch Bayh from Indiana

• Senator Adlai Stevenson III from Illinois

• Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska

• Former Senator Stephen M. Young from Ohio

• Governor Milton Shapp of Pennsylvania

• Former Governor Michael DiSalle of Ohio

• Ohio State Treasurer Gertrude W. Donahey

• Astronaut John Glenn from Ohio

• George McGovern

• Senator Frank Church from Idaho

• George Wallace

• Former Governor Lester Maddox of Georgia

• Shirley Chisholm

• Representative Ron Dellums from California

• Feminist leader and author Betty Friedan

• Feminist leader, journalist, and DNC official Gloria Steinem

• Terry Sanford

• Former President Lyndon B. Johnson from Texas

• Henry M. Jackson

• Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia

1972 Democratic National Convention


Results:


 * George McGovern – 1864.95
 * Henry M. Jackson – 525
 * George Wallace – 381.7
 * Shirley Chisholm – 151.95
 * Terry Sanford – 77.5
 * Hubert Humphrey – 66.7
 * Wilbur Mills – 33.8
 * Edmund Muskie – 24.3
 * Ted Kennedy – 12.7
 * Sam Yorty – 10
 * Wayne Hays – 5
 * John Lindsay – 5
 * Fred Harris – 2
 * Eugene McCarthy – 2
 * Walter Mondale – 2
 * Ramsey Clark – 1
 * Walter Fauntroy – 1
 * Vance Hartke – 1
 * Harold Hughes – 1
 * Patsy Mink – 1

Vice presidential vote
Most polls showed McGovern running well behind incumbent President Richard Nixon except when McGovern was paired with Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. McGovern and his campaign trust heavily lobbied Kennedy to accept to be McGovern's running mate. Kennedy would initially refuse, suggesting McGovern pick U.S. Representative (and House Ways and Means Committee chairman) Wilbur Mills of Arkansas and Boston Mayor Kevin White. McGovern would go onto ask former Vice President and Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey, but his main goal was to get Kennedy. Kennedy would continue to refuse until McGovern said he would pledge his support for healthcare reform, which Kennedy had worked hard to get done. Kennedy would accept the position as running mate.

The Vice Presidential ballot would last incredibly long until Kennedy announced his candidacy for Vice President. Kennedy was chosen almost unanimously, and Kennedy's speech and the ballots would cause McGovern to be forced to give his speech as 2 am, local time.

Republican nomination
Republican candidates:
 * Richard Nixon, President of the United States from California
 * Pete McCloskey, Representative from California
 * John M. Ashbrook, Representative from Ohio

Primaries
Nixon was a popular incumbent president in 1972, as he was credited with opening the People's Republic of China as a result of his visit that year, and achieving détente with the Soviet Union. Polls showed that Nixon held a strong lead in the Republican primaries. He was challenged by two candidates: liberal Pete McCloskey from California, and conservative John Ashbrook from Ohio. McCloskey ran as an anti-war candidate, while Ashbrook opposed Nixon's détente policies towards China and the Soviet Union. In the New Hampshire primary, McCloskey garnered 19.8% of the vote to Nixon's 67.6%, with Ashbrook receiving 9.7%. Nixon won 1323 of the 1324 delegates to the Republican convention, with McCloskey receiving the vote of one delegate from New Mexico. 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.

Convention
Seven members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War were brought on federal charges for conspiring to disrupt the Republican convention. They were acquitted by a federal jury in Gainesville, Florida.