Claim: Richard Nixon won a second term in office.

The United States presidential election of 1972 , the 47th quadrennial presidential election was held on Tuesday , November 7 , 1972 . The Democratic Party 's nomination was eventually won by Senator George McGovern of South Dakota , who ran an anti-war campaign against Republican incumbent President Richard Nixon , but was handicapped by his outsider status , limited support from his own party , the perception of many voters that he was a left-wing extremist and the scandal that resulted from the stepping down of vice-presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton .   Emphasizing a good economy and his successes in foreign affairs , such as coming near to ending American involvement in the Vietnam War and establishing relations with China , Nixon won the election in a landslide . Overall , he won 60.7 % of the popular vote , a percentage only slightly lower than Lyndon B. Johnson 's in 1964 , but with a larger margin of victory in the popular vote -LRB- 23.2 % -RRB- , thus becoming the fourth largest in presidential election history . He received almost 18 million more popular votes than McGovern , the widest margin of any United States presidential election . McGovern only won the electoral votes in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia . No candidate since has managed to equal or surpass Nixon 's total percentage or margin of the popular vote , and his electoral vote total and percentage , which rank sixth , have been surpassed only once , and his state total matched only once , by Ronald Reagan in 1984 .   Also in this election , Democrat Shirley Chisholm became the first African American to run for a major party nomination , and Patsy Mink was the first Asian American candidate to run for the Democratic Party candidacy . It was also the first time that Hawaii was carried by a Republican , becoming the last of the 50 states to do so . Together with the House and Senate elections of 1972 , it was the first electoral event in which people aged 18 to 20 could vote in every state , according to the provisions of the 26th Amendment . It was also the first election in which California had the most votes in the electoral college and it has remained the most populous state since then .   Furthermore , the presidential term of 1973 -- 1977 is notable for being the only one in American history in which both the original President and Vice President fail to complete the term . Vice President Spiro Agnew , who resigned less than a year after the election over allegations that he had accepted bribes as Governor of Maryland , was replaced by Gerald Ford under the terms of the 25th Amendment , while Nixon would resign due to the Watergate Scandal in August 1974 . Ultimately , the 1973 -- 77 term would see two different Presidents and three different Vice Presidents . As of 2017 , the 1972 election was the last one where the winning candidate did not serve their full term of office .   As of 2017 , this is the last time Minnesota voted for the Republican candidate .