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Research dossier · History & Society

1972 United States presidential election

Re-election of Richard Nixon

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 8, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 7, 1972. Incumbent Republican President Richard Nixon and his running mate, incumbent vice president Spiro Agnew, were re-elected to a second term; they defeated the Democratic ticket of Senator George McGovern and former ambassador to France Sargent Shriver in a landslide. With 60.7% of the popular vote, Nixon won the largest share of the popular vote for the Republican Party in any presidential election.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “1972 United States presidential election” is re-election of Richard Nixon. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through United, States and presidential, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1972—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, United, States and presidential is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “re-election of Richard Nixon” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1972.

Critical limits

Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “1972 United States presidential election”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 1972 United States presidential election primary sources, 1972 United States presidential election archive and United research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1972 United States presidential election”?
  2. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1972 United States presidential election” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.