Senate
Democratic: 48 (+2)
Republican: 35 (-5)American Independent: 17 (+3)
House
Democratic: 193 (+16)
Republican: 158 (-31)American Independent: 83 (+14)
The 1970 midterms were an embarrassment to the Republican Party. In fact, their Senate Leader, Hugh Scott, lost by 330 votes. This was due to the American Independent candidate taking votes from the Working class. The Republicans also lost their house plurality.
_______________________________
When Hubert Humphrey began his campaign, a lot of candidates dropped out, seeing his victory as inevitable. However, George McGovern put a tough challenge to Hubert Humphrey. When the convention arrived, Hubert Humphrey won with a good amount of delegates, but McGovernites were extremely angry, seeing the nomination as stolen. When Thomas Eagleton said that George McGovern was the candidate of “Amnesty, Acid and Abortion” at his convention speech, the McGovernites had enough and formed their own campaign with McGovern as their nominee and Parren Mitchell as their VP nominee. Hubert Humphrey made his Scoop Jackson his running mate
The Republicans, in the mean time, threw out Spiro Agnew for Charles Percy. Agnew was popular with the white working class, and he being deposed did not sit well with them. Spiro Agnew didn’t even hear about him being cast aside until it was too late. Agnew refused to vote for anyone, and made that clear at the convention
The American Independents, now an actual party, renominated George Wallace and made George Smathers (who had taken back his senate seat in 1970) his VP gave Wallace a boost in Florida.
In October 2nd, 1972, it was leaked that Nixon purposely sabotaged the Vietnam peace process. Before, he was polling at 47%, now; he was polling at 29%
The Nixon Campaign did major damage control, but it was too late, Richard Nixon had been pushed to 3rd, and Hubert Humphrey became president
Hubert Humphrey/Scoop Jackson (Democratic), 355 Electoral votes, 40.6%
George Wallace/George Smathers (American Independent), 127 Electoral votes, 20.0%Richard Nixon/Charles Percy (Republican), 40 Electoral votes, 32.2%
George McGovern/Parren Mitchell (Independent), 16 Electoral votes, 6.9%Senate:
Democratic: 53 (+5)
Republican: 26 (-9)American Independent: 21 (+4)
House:
Democratic: 202 (+9)
Republican: 136 (-22)American Independent: 96 (+23)
______________
Last update for today