“Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!”
The crowd chanted that on November 7, 1972. Richard Nixon had just won the election for U.S. president. His supporters cheered for him in Washington, D.C. It has now been 50 years since Nixon won his second term.
Nixon was America’s vice president from 1953 to 1961. He almost won the presidential election of 1960. In 1968, Nixon tried again — and won this time. After four years as president, he wanted a second term. He faced Senator George McGovern.
The U.S. election of 1972 was unlike any other. For the first time, teenagers could vote! A new law lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. How would that affect the election? “Everyone was looking to see if young people would vote,” said historian Rebecca de Schweinitz. And people wondered “how they would vote” too.
Many young voters worried about the Vietnam War. U.S. troops entered Vietnam in 1965. Thousands of them had died. In 1968, Nixon vowed to end the war. But four years later, that still hadn’t happened. McGovern was against the war. He made a promise that if he became president, “every American soldier and every American prisoner will be home.”
Susan Nichols was 20 years old in 1972. “I remember feeling devastated,” she said about the Vietnam War. “There was no end to that senseless war,” she explained. Nichols said young people “wanted a change.” Nichols voted for McGovern.
More than 77 million Americans voted on November 7, 1972. That set a record. Nixon won 49 states. McGovern won only one: Massachusetts. (He also won in Washington, D.C.) About 47 million people voted for Nixon. About 29 million voted for McGovern. It was a !
Nixon began his second term as president in January 1973. Two months later, the last U.S. troops left Vietnam. But Nixon did not finish his term. In June 1972, robbers had done a crime. They wanted to steal information that would help Nixon win his re-election. Instead, this scandal caused Nixon to quit his job. He resigned on August 9, 1974. Nixon never got “four more years” in office.
Katherine Ellison is a historian. She said the 1972 election has a lesson: “Young people should know that their vote matters.”
Updated November 4, 2022, 5:01 P.M. (ET)
By Tyler Burdick
