page_title: 1972 United States presidential election in Texas
section_title: Role of the Clintons in the McGovern campaign
hierarchical_section_title: 1972 United States presidential election in Texas / Role of the Clintons in the McGovern campaign
caption_attribution_description: English: McGovern Texas button1
context_page_description: The 1972 United States presidential election in Texas was held on November 7, 1972 as part of the 1972 United States presidential election. Incumbent Republican President Richard Nixon overwhelmingly won the state of Texas with 66.20% of the vote, to the Democratic Party candidate George McGovern’s 33.24%, thus giving him the state’s 26 electoral votes. This was the first time a Republican won the state of Texas since Dwight D. Eisenhower won it in 1956.
  Nixon’s win in Texas made him the first ever Republican presidential candidate to break sixty percent of Texas’ popular vote in a presidential election, surpassing former President Dwight D. Eisenhower's performance of 55.26% in 1956, and even native son Lyndon B. Johnson’s 63.32% in 1964. Nixon is so far the only Republican candidate to break 65% of the state’s popular vote. At the county level, 246 of Texas’ 254 counties voted for Nixon, all by wide margins except heavily black Robertson County where Nixon won by a single vote. Nixon won 22 of Texas’ 24 congressional districts – with the 18th and 20th constituting the only congressional districts McGovern won anywhere in the former Confederacy.
context_section_description: Bill Clinton and his then-girlfriend (and future wife) Hillary (both Yale Law School students at the time) moved to Austin to work on the Texas McGovern campaign.
  
  Bill had originally planned to begin working as a southern states coordinator for the McGovern campaign during the summer of 1971. However, he postponed those plans in order to spend that summer with Hillary, who had taken a summer job in California. The following summer, Bill took a job working for the campaign in Texas. He asked Hillary if she would be interested in joining him there. In her memoir Living History, Hillary recalled, 
  Bill asked if I wanted to go too. I did, but only if I had a specific job.
  Hillary was tasked with registering black and Hispanic voters in South Texas on behalf of the Democratic National Committee. With the 1972 election being the first in which 18 year-olds were able to vote, the task of voter registration was much greater than in other years.
  Hillary worked alongside Sara Ehrman, with whom she bonded. She also bonded with Betsey Wright while working on the campaign, with whom she frequently would travel to Barton Springs
  Bill, meanwhile, worked closely with Eddie Bernice Johnson. He also worked with Ron Kirk (future mayor of Dallas), Ann Richards (future governor of Texas). He additionally worked with Steven Spielberg who, at the time, was a little-known television producer. He traveled frequently across the state to organize events and to hang posters in county courthouses. He spent considerable time in Dallas, where he had an office in the campaign's local headquarters on Lemmon Avenue.
  The Clintons worked on the campaign alongside Garry Mauro (future Texas Land Commissioner). Mauro would subsequently head Bill's 1992 campaign in Texas. They also worked alongside future Austin advertising executives Roy Spence and Judy Trabulsi, who would both go on to work on Bill Clinton's presidential campaigns. Spence would also work as a media adviser to Hillary in her 2008 presidential campaign, while Trablusi supported the candidacy of Barack Obama. Both worked in support of her 2016 presidential campaign.
  While working in Texas, the Clintons also networked with some donors that would later contribute to their own campaigns for political office, such as Bernard Rapoport.
  The Clintons, who were law students, were absent from attending their fall classes that term in order to work for the campaign. However, they both managed to ace their finals.
  While those working on the campaign expected him to lose in Texas, they  worked in attempt to decrease his margin of defeat.
caption: Hillary's workload of registering voters was large due to the 1972 presidential election being the first since the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18
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