1972 United States presidential election in Maine

Main article: 1972 United States presidential election

1972 United States presidential election in Maine

November 7, 1972

Nominee Richard Nixon George McGovern Party Republican Democratic Home state California South Dakota Running mate Spiro Agnew Sargent Shriver Electoral vote 4 0 Popular vote 256,458 160,584 Percentage 61.46% 38.48%

Nixon   50-60%   60-70%   70-80% McGovern   50-60%

President before election Richard Nixon Republican Elected President Richard Nixon Republican

The 1972 United States presidential election in Maine took place on November 7, 1972, as part of the 1972 United States presidential election which was held throughout all fifty states and the District of Columbia. Voters chose four representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

Maine was won by the incumbent Republican president Richard Nixon by a landslide 23 point margin over his Democratic challenger, Senator George McGovern of South Dakota. Nixon took 61.46% of the vote, totaling up to 256,458 votes, to McGovern’s 38.48%, and 160,584 votes. In the midst of Nixon’s massive 49-state landslide victory, Maine voted almost exactly as the country did, only voting about 0.7% more Republican than the nation as a whole.

Richard Nixon swept every county in the state except for Androscoggin, where McGovern won by a mere 103 votes. Androscoggin was the solitary county McGovern won in the Northeast outside of Massachusetts or in the city limits of Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington.

Nixon's victory was the first of five consecutive Republican victories in the state, as Maine would not vote for a Democratic candidate again until Bill Clinton in 1992; it has since become a Democratic-leaning state.

Since 1972 no presidential candidate of either party has surpassed Nixon’s 61.46% of the vote in Maine (the closest being Ronald Reagan’s 60.83% in 1984).

This was the first presidential election in which Maine allocated its electoral votes proportionally, giving 2 electoral votes to the overall winner of the state and 1 electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district.

Results

1972 United States presidential election in Maine
Party		Candidate	Votes	Percentage	Electoral votes
	Republican	Richard Nixon (incumbent)	256,458	61.46%	4
	Democratic	George McGovern	160,584	38.48%	0
	American Independent	John G. Schmitz (write-in)	117	0.03%	0
	Peace and Freedom	Benjamin Spock (write-in)	3	0.00%	0
	Socialist Workers	Linda Jenness (write-in)	2	0.00%	0
	Communist	Gus Hall (write-in)	2	0.00%	0
	Libertarian	John Hospers (write-in)	1	0.00%	0
	Write-ins	Scattered (Other write-ins)	104	0.02%	0
Totals			417,271	100.00%	4
Voter turnout					60%/68%

Congressional district

district	Nixon	McGovern	Representative
1st	61.42%	38.58%	Peter Kyros
2nd	61.58%	38.42%	William Hathaway (92nd Congress)
			William Cohen (93rd Congress)

Results by county

County	Richard Nixon Republican		George McGovern Democratic		Various candidates Write-ins		Margin		Total votes cast
	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%
Androscoggin	19,406	49.86%	19,509	50.12%	9	0.02%	-103	-0.26%	38,924
Aroostook	19,051	62.37%	11,474	37.56%	22	0.07%	7,577	24.81%	30,547
Cumberland	51,268	60.59%	33,326	39.38%	23	0.03%	17,942	21.21%	84,617
Franklin	5,958	66.50%	2,988	33.35%	14	0.16%	2,970	33.15%	8,960
Hancock	11,889	73.90%	4,191	26.05%	7	0.04%	7,698	47.85%	16,087
Kennebec	24,617	59.99%	16,379	39.91%	39	0.10%	8,238	20.08%	41,035
Knox	8,478	70.19%	3,601	29.81%			4,877	40.38%	12,079
Lincoln	7,580	72.28%	2,903	27.68%	4	0.04%	4,677	44.60%	10,487
Oxford	12,114	64.36%	6,661	35.39%	48	0.26%	5,453	28.97%	18,823
Penobscot	30,186	61.92%	18,552	38.06%	11	0.02%	11,634	23.86%	48,749
Piscataquis	4,617	64.70%	2,518	35.29%	1	0.01%	2,099	29.41%	7,136
Sagadahoc	6,463	65.35%	3,414	34.52%	13	0.13%	3,049	30.83%	9,890
Somerset	10,079	62.97%	5,921	36.99%	5	0.03%	4,158	25.98%	16,005
Waldo	6,480	68.78%	2,941	31.21%	1	0.01%	3,539	37.57%	9,422
Washington	7,820	67.57%	3,742	32.33%	12	0.10%	4,078	35.24%	11,574
York	30,452	57.53%	22,464	42.44%	20	0.04%	7,988	15.09%	52,936
Totals	256,458	61.46%	160,584	38.48%	229	0.05%	95,874	22.98%	417,271

Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican

• Aroostook
• Cumberland
• Franklin
• Kennebec
• Knox
• Oxford
• Penobscot
• Piscataquis
• Somerset
• Sagadahoc
• Washington
• York

See also

• United States presidential elections in Maine