Who ran in the 1972 presidential election?

Incumbent President Richard Nixon a faced South Dakota Senator called George McGovern. Nixon's running mate was Spiro Agnew (who he disliked entirely). McGovern chose Senator Thomas Eagleton of Minnesota as his running mate. When it was discovered that Eagleton had psychiatric illnesses had had received electric shock therapy, McGovern initially decided to stick with his running mate. He then did a U-Turn and changed his candidate to Sargent Shriver, John Kennedy's brother-in-law. This contributed to his image of being indecisive.

Nixon was aided by the fact the economy was in good shape, the war in Vietnam was over and he had just made groundbreaking visits to China and the USSR. Nixon was quite moderate and many Demoocrats were satifisfied with having him in office while they controlled Congress; some even formed a "Democrats for Nixon" campaign. This meant McGovern's campaign was disorganised and lacked support, while the Republicans successfully portrayed him as standing for "Amnesty, abortion and acid". In the end, Nixon won by a landslide, with a majority of votes in 49 states, except for Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.

Nixon's popularity crashed a year after the election as a result of the Watergate Scandal. This led to several bumper stickers appearing in Boston saying "Don't blame me, I'm from Massachusetts!"