The 1972 United States presidential election in Mississippi was held on November 7, 1972. Incumbent President Nixon won the state of Mississippi with 78.20% of the vote.[1] This was the highest percentage Nixon received in any state in the election.[2] Nixon even received a higher share of the vote in Mississippi than McGovern did in the District of Columbia, making this one of only two elections where Washington, D.C. wasn't the largest margin for either candidate, along with 1964.
In Mississippi, voters voted for electors individually instead of as a slate, as in the other states. McGovern carried only three counties – Claiborne, Holmes, and Jefferson – all of which have overwhelming majority black populations.[3] This was also the first time since 1944 that Mississippi backed the national winner in a presidential election.
As of the 2020 presidential election[update], this is the last election in which the following counties voted for a Republican presidential candidate: Marshall, Quitman, Bolivar, Sharkey, Wilkinson, Humphreys, Coahoma, Noxubee, and Tunica.[4] The proportion of white voters supporting McGovern was utterly negligible and estimated at maximally three percent.[5] Calculated estimates indicate that 100% of white voters supported Nixon while 0% supported McGovern.[6][7]
^Black, Earl (2021). "Competing Responses to the New Southern Politics: Republican and Democratic Southern Strategies, 1964-76". In Reed, John Shelton; Black, Merle (eds.). Perspectives on the American South: An Annual Review of Society, Politics, and Culture. ISBN9781136764882.
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