The 1972 United States elections was held on November 7, and elected the members of the 93rd United States Congress. The election took place during the later stages of the Vietnam War. The Republican Party won a landslide victory in the presidential election, and picked up seats in the House, but the Democratic Party easily retained control of Congress. This was the first election after the ratification of the 26th Amendment granted the right to vote to those aged 18–20.

Incumbent Republican President Richard Nixon won re-election, defeating Democratic Senator George McGovern from South Dakota. Nixon won a landslide victory, taking just under 61% of the popular vote and winning every state but Massachusetts and Washington, D. C. Libertarian John Hospers won the electoral vote of one faithless elector. McGovern won the Democratic nomination, after defeating Washington Senator Henry M. Jackson, Alabama Governor George Wallace, and New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm. This was the first presidential election after the McGovern–Fraser Commission (which McGovern himself had chaired) caused an increase in the number of states holding primary elections.

In the House, the Republican Party picked up twelve seats, but Democrats easily retained a majority. In the Senate, the Democratic Party picked up two seats, increasing their majority. The House elections took place after the 1970 United States Census and the subsequent Congressional re-apportionment. In one of the races for the Senate, future President Joseph R. Biden Jr, a Democrat, defeated incumbent Republican Senator J. Caleb Boggs in an upset victory, costing Republicans a Senate seat. Biden would go on to serve in the Senate until 2009 to become Vice President under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017 and he became President himself in 2021 after defeating President Donald Trump in the 2020 United States presidential election.

In the gubernatorial elections, Democrats won a net gain of one seat.

Presidential foreign policy successes such as the War in Vietnam coming to an end, a visit to Red China, and walking a fine line between having smoother and respectable relations with communist nations while going after communists during the Cold War, as well as the widespread perception that the Democratic Party's nominee for President, Senator George McGovern of South Dakota is a left-wing extremist for his progressive views and his opposition to the war had guaranteed a landslide reelection of the President, though that would eventually go to waste by the end of the Watergate scandal. Down-ballot Democrats were largely spared from McGovern's downfall and they dramatically outperformed McGovern in the down-ballot races, and down-ballot Republicans severely underperformed President Nixon, showing that there were millions of Democrats who were still inclined to support their party but they also held conservative views, eventually to be known as Reagan Democrats by the Reagan presidency of the 1980s.

See also
1972 United States presidential election
1972 United States House of Representatives elections
1972 United States Senate elections
1972 United States gubernatorial elections
1970 United States redistricting cycle

References

 
1972