United States presidential election in Texas, 1972

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November 7, 1972

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Nominee	Richard Nixon	George McGovern
Party	Republican	Democratic
Home state	California	South Dakota
Running mate	Spiro Agnew	Sargent Shriver
Electoral vote	26	0
Popular vote	2,298,896	1,154,291
Percentage	66.2%	33.2%

County results

Nixon

50-60%

60-70%

70-80%

80-90%

McGovern

50-60%

80-90%

President before election

Richard Nixon
Republican

Elected President

Richard Nixon
Republican

Nixon

McGovern

Richard Nixon
Republican

The 1972 United States presidential election in Texas was held on November 7, 1972. Incumbent Republican President Richard Nixon overwhelmingly won the state of Texas with 66.20 percent of the vote, to the Democratic Party candidate George McGovern’s 33.24 percent, thus giving him the state’s 26 electoral votes. This was the first time a Republican won the state of Texas since 1956.

Nixon’s win in Texas made him the first ever Republican presidential candidate to break sixty percent of Texas’ popular vote in a presidential election, surpassing former President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s performance of 55.26 percent in 1956, and even native son Lyndon B. Johnson’s 63.32 percent in the 1964 election. Nixon is so far the only Republican candidate to break 65 percent of the state’s popular vote. At the county level, 246 of Texas’ 254 counties voted for Nixon, all by wide margins except heavily black Robertson County where Nixon won by a single vote. Nixon won 22 of Texas' 24 congressional districts – with the 18th (Harris County) and 20th (Bexar County) constituting the only congressional districts McGovern won anywhere in the former Confederacy. McGovern, however, did not win either county each of these districts were located in.

McGovern’s only county wins came from the south Texas region along the U.S.-Mexico border and Cottle County in the northern part of the state, though even his performances here were underwhelming. In fact, in the oldest extant Democrat stronghold in the entire United States, Nixon became the only Republican since Herbert Hoover in 1928 to carry Hidalgo County, the only Republican since Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 to win Dimmit County and also Presidio County, one of only two Republicans since the county was founded in 1911 (following Eisenhower in 1956) to carry Jim Wells County and the only Republican apart from Eisenhower’s two victories there to win Wilacy County since it was created in 1921. This is also the last election at which Zavala County has voted Republican, though that county did so even in 1960. Duval County, however, gave McGovern over 85 percent of the vote, which was the highest percentage of votes he received in any county nationally. 1972 was the third successive election when Duval proved the most Democratic county in the nation.

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