Incumbent Republican President Richard Nixon won re-election , defeating Democratic Senator George McGovern from South Dakota . Nixon won a landslide victory , taking just under 61 % of the popular vote and winning every state but Massachusetts and Washington , D.C. . Libertarian John Hospers won the electoral vote of one faithless elector , making him the most recent member of a third party to win an electoral vote . McGovern won the Democratic nomination after defeating Washington Senator Henry M. Jackson , Alabama Governor George Wallace , and New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm . This was the first presidential election after the McGovern – Fraser Commission ( which McGovern himself had chaired ) caused an increase in the number of states holding primary elections
Democratic nomination
1972 Democratic National Convention
1972 United States elections