1972 United States presidential election in Alaska
election in Alaska
The 1972 United States presidential election in Alaska took place on November 7, 1972, as part of the 1972 United States presidential election. Voters chose three representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
Alaska was won by incumbent President Richard Nixon (R-California) with 58.1% of the popular vote against George McGovern (D-South Dakota) with 34.6%. Nixon ultimately won the national vote as well, defeating McGovern and Representative John G. Schmitz (R-California), who ran under the American Independent Party ticket.
Results
Analysis
Although Alaska has only voted Democratic once, which was for Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, during the state's first four presidential elections Alaska was not substantially more Republican than the nation at-large: indeed owing to a fairly strong third-party campaign Nixon won 2.57 percent less of the vote in Alaska than over the entire country, although McGovern received 2.88 percent less than his national share.
While Alaska would prove to be John Schmitz's second strongest state after Idaho, he failed to equal the success of George Wallace’s campaign in the previous election.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “1972 United States presidential election in Alaska” as election in Alaska. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as election in Alaska. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16150548. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1972 and 1964.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “1972 United States presidential election in Alaska” 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.