The 1972 United States presidential election was the 47th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 7, 1972. Incumbent Republican President Richard Nixon handily defeated Democratic Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, receiving all but 18 of 538 electoral votes (one of which was pledged to Nixon but given to Libertarian party nominee John Hospers by a faithless elector in Virginia). Until the 1984 election, this was the largest margin of victory in the Electoral College for a Republican in a U.S. presidential election, and as of 2023 it remains the last time a presidential candidate captured more than 60% of the popular vote. This was also the most recent election in which the entire Midwest was won by a single candidate, particularly because Minnesota has not voted for a Republican for president since. Despite the seismic scope of President Nixon’s victory, heavy ticket-splitting prevented Republicans from making substantial inroads in the parallel Congressional races (a phenomenon which future President Joe Biden would benefit from in his upset election to the Senate). Nixon swept aside challenges from two Republican representatives in the 1972 Republican primaries to win renomination. McGovern, who had played a significant role in changing the Democratic nomination system after the 1968 election, mobilized the anti–Vietnam War movement and other liberal supporters to win his party's nomination. Among the candidates he defeated were early front-runner Edmund Muskie, 1968 nominee Hubert Humphrey, Governor George Wallace, and Representative Shirley Chisholm, the first African American person to run for a major party's presidential nomination. Nixon emphasized the strong economy and his success in foreign affairs, while McGovern ran on a platform calling for an immediate end to the Vietnam War, and the institution of a guaranteed minimum income. Nixon maintained a large, and consistent, lead in polling. Separately, Nixon's reelection committee broke into the Watergate complex to wiretap the Democratic National Committee's headquarters, a scandal that would later be known as "Watergate". McGovern's campaign was seriously damaged by the revelation that his running mate, Thomas Eagleton, had undergone electroconvulsive therapy as a treatment for depression. Eagleton was replaced on the ballot by Sargent Shriver. Nixon won the election in a landslide, taking 60.7% of the popular vote and carrying 49 states, while being the first Republican to sweep the South. McGovern took just 37.5% of the popular vote, while John G. Schmitz of the American Independent Party won 1.4%