Main article: 1972 United States presidential election
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County Results
Municipality Results
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The 1972 United States presidential election in Massachusetts took place on November 7, 1972, as part of the 1972 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all 50 states and D.C. Voters chose 14 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
Massachusetts voted for the Democratic nominee, Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, over incumbent Republican President Richard Nixon of California. McGovern's running mate was U.S. Ambassador Sargent Shriver of Maryland, who had replaced Senator Thomas Eagleton during the campaign, while Nixon ran with incumbent Vice President Spiro Agnew of Maryland.
McGovern carried Massachusetts with 54.20% of the vote to Nixon's 45.23%, a Democratic victory margin of 8.97 percentage points (19.82% more votes than Nixon). In the midst of a massive nationwide Republican landslide in which Richard Nixon had carried 49 states, Massachusetts proved to be the only state in the nation that would cast its electoral votes for George McGovern, joined by the District of Columbia. McGovern also carried the state by a surprisingly comfortable nine-point margin, making the state 32% more Democratic than the national average in the 1972 election.
McGovern, a staunch liberal Democrat best known for his strong principled opposition to the Vietnam War, was painted by the Nixon campaign as an extremist too far to the left of the American mainstream at the time, and this paid off in delivering Nixon a nationwide re-election landslide. Prior to 1972, Massachusetts had been a Democratic-leaning state since 1928, and a Democratic stronghold since 1960. But McGovern's comfortable victory in 1972 still stands out, as many other traditional Democratic strongholds abandoned the Democrats in 1972. For example, Nixon took neighboring Rhode Island by six points, even though it normally voted similarly to Massachusetts. J. Anthony Lukas noted that many New Yorkers felt that Ted Kennedy's outsize money and influence in Massachusetts played a major role in keeping the state in the Democratic column, summing up this explanation simply as "Teddy did it". Kennedy was also the brother-in-law of Democratic vice presidential nominee Shriver.
To date, this is the last time that the towns of Deerfield, Gill, Monterey, Oak Bluffs, Pelham, Tisbury, Williamsburg, and Williamstown have voted Republican.
Results
| 1972 United States presidential election in Massachusetts | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | Percentage | Electoral votes | |
| Democratic | George McGovern | 1,332,540 | 54.20% | 14 | |
| Republican | Richard Nixon (inc.) | 1,112,078 | 45.23% | 0 | |
| Socialist Workers | Linda Jenness | 10,600 | 0.43% | 0 | |
| American Independent | John G. Schmitz (Write-in) | 2,877 | 0.12% | 0 | |
| Socialist Labor | Louis Fisher (Write-in) | 129 | 0.01% | 0 | |
| People's | Benjamin Spock (Write-in) | 101 | 0.00% | 0 | |
| Communist | Gus Hall (Write-in) | 46 | 0.00% | 0 | |
| Libertarian | John G. Hospers (Write-in) | 43 | 0.00% | 0 | |
| Write-ins | Scattered (Other write-ins) | 342 | 0.01% | 0 | |
| Totals | 2,458,756 | 100.00% | 14 | ||
| Voter Turnout (Voting age/Registered) | 62%/79% | ||||
Results by county
| County | George McGovern Democratic |
Richard Nixon Republican |
Various candidates Other parties |
Margin | Total votes cast | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | ||
| Barnstable | 22,636 | 38.08% | 36,340 | 61.14% | 466 | 0.78% | -13,704 | -23.06% | 59,442 |
| Berkshire | 35,391 | 53.39% | 30,380 | 45.83% | 513 | 0.78% | 5,011 | 7.56% | 66,284 |
| Bristol | 103,163 | 54.65% | 84,390 | 44.71% | 1,215 | 0.64% | 18,773 | 9.94% | 188,768 |
| Dukes | 2,001 | 46.15% | 2,312 | 53.32% | 23 | 0.53% | -311 | -7.27% | 4,336 |
| Essex | 157,324 | 52.96% | 138,040 | 46.47% | 1,719 | 0.57% | 19,284 | 6.49% | 297,083 |
| Franklin | 11,968 | 42.35% | 16,088 | 56.93% | 202 | 0.72% | -4,120 | -14.58% | 28,258 |
| Hampden | 94,945 | 52.13% | 86,164 | 47.31% | 1,024 | 0.56% | 8,781 | 4.82% | 182,133 |
| Hampshire | 28,572 | 53.25% | 24,529 | 45.72% | 553 | 1.03% | 4,043 | 7.53% | 53,654 |
| Middlesex | 345,343 | 55.91% | 269,064 | 43.56% | 3,244 | 0.53% | 76,279 | 12.35% | 617,651 |
| Nantucket | 952 | 40.00% | 1,418 | 59.58% | 10 | 0.42% | -466 | -19.58% | 2,380 |
| Norfolk | 150,732 | 52.57% | 134,459 | 46.89% | 1,558 | 0.54% | 16,273 | 5.68% | 286,749 |
| Plymouth | 69,124 | 47.32% | 76,062 | 52.07% | 878 | 0.61% | -6,938 | -4.75% | 146,064 |
| Suffolk | 166,250 | 65.76% | 85,272 | 33.73% | 1,299 | 0.51% | 80,978 | 32.03% | 252,821 |
| Worcester | 144,139 | 52.77% | 127,560 | 46.70% | 1,428 | 0.53% | 16,579 | 6.07% | 273,127 |
| Totals | 1,332,540 | 54.20% | 1,112,078 | 45.23% | 14,138 | 0.57% | 220,462 | 8.97% | 2,458,756 |
Counties flipped from Democratic to Republican
Results by congressional district
McGovern won 11 of 12 congressional districts, including three that elected Republicans. Nixon won one that elected a Democrat (the 12th district). The results below show the percentage of the two-party vote share won by each candidate and do not account for third party votes.
| District | Nixon | McGovern | Representative |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 48.8% | 51.2% | Silvio O. Conte |
| 2nd | 48.2% | 51.8% | Edward Boland |
| 3rd | 45.9% | 54.1% | Robert Drinan |
| Harold Donohue | |||
| 4th | 44.3% | 55.7% | Harold Donohue |
| Robert Drinan | |||
| 5th | 47.0% | 53.0% | F. Bradford Morse |
| Paul W. Cronin | |||
| 6th | 47.2% | 52.8% | Michael J. Harrington |
| 7th | 42.9% | 57.1% | Torbert Macdonald |
| 8th | 33.9% | 66.1% | Tip O'Neill |
| 9th | 40.6% | 59.4% | Louise Day Hicks |
| Joe Moakley | |||
| 10th | 49.6% | 50.4% | Margaret Heckler |
| 11th | 43.4% | 56.6% | James Burke |
| 12th | 51.8% | 48.2% | Hastings Keith |
| Gerry Studds |
Analysis
On the county map, McGovern carried 9 of the state's 14 counties, including the most heavily populated parts of the state. The state's capital and largest city, Boston, would prove to be a McGovern stronghold; voters in Suffolk County, where Boston is located, cast 66% of the vote for McGovern. Boston is one of the few areas in the country where McGovern actually outperformed Jimmy Carter’s performance four years later in 1976; while Carter won narrow popular and electoral victories nationally, he carried Suffolk County with only 61%. On the other hand, despite Nixon's loss in the state and though Ronald Reagan would carry the state twice, this election remains the last time Dukes County, which had never voted Democratic before Lyndon B. Johnson’s landslide in 1964, has voted Republican.
The results in 1972 made Massachusetts the only state which Richard Nixon never carried in any of his three presidential campaigns, although it voted for Nixon when he was Dwight Eisenhower's running mate in 1952 and 1956. It voted for its native son John F. Kennedy when he defeated Nixon in 1960, and Hubert Humphrey when he lost to Nixon in 1968. This was also the first time in history that a Republican president was elected twice without ever carrying Massachusetts, a feat that has since been repeated twice, in 2004 and 2024. Nixon was the first president to win two terms without the state since Andrew Jackson in 1828 and 1832. As of 2024, this election marks only the second of three times (after 1852 and 1980) that Massachusetts has not voted for the same candidate as neighboring Rhode Island.
"Don't blame me! I'm from Massachusetts"
After Nixon was re-elected, he would later resign only a year and a half into his second term due to his involvement in the Watergate scandal and the illegal activities he committed. After the Watergate scandal broke and Nixon resigned due to criminal activity, bumper stickers with the words "Don't blame me! I'm from Massachusetts" (and variants) became a symbol of the sentiment felt by Massachusetts residents, serving as a proverbial "I told you so" to the 49 states that supported Nixon's re-election.
See also
- 1972 United States presidential election in the District of Columbia, the only other place that voted Democratic in the 1972 presidential election.
- 1984 United States presidential election in Minnesota, the only state to vote Democratic in 1984, like Massachusetts was in 1972.
- United States presidential elections in Massachusetts
References
- REPORT NUMBER P20-253, Voting and Registration in the Election of November 1972, table 3
- Lukas, J. Anthony (January 14, 1973). "As Massachusetts went—". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
- "1972 Presidential General Election Results - Massachusetts". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved February 7, 2013.
- "1972 President General Election". Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts - Elections Division: Election Results Archive. Retrieved July 8, 2024.
- "1972 United States Presidential Election, Results by Congressional District". Retrieved October 9, 2023.
- The Political Graveyard; Dukes County, Massachusetts
- Sullivan, Robert David; ‘How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century’; America Magazine in The National Catholic Review; June 29, 2016
- Kahn, Joseph P. (October 23, 2012). "George McGovern's indelible mark on Massachusetts politics". Boston Globe. Retrieved May 31, 2015.
| Federal elections in Massachusetts | |
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| U.S. Senate Class 1 | |
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| "s/" = Special election See also: Political party strength in Massachusetts For statewide elections, see Template:State elections in Massachusetts footer. | |
| State and district results of the 1972 United States presidential election | ||
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| Elections in the United States | |
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