AH Challenge: Have Nixon win every Electoral Vote in the 1972 Presidential Election

In the election of 1972 Nixon won 49 out 50 states, losing Massachusetts and Washington D.C. to George McGovern.

1972 Election Results

Richard M. Nixon (Republican, Incumbent)
Popular: 46,740,323
Electoral: 520

George McGovern (Democrat)
Popular: 28,901,598
Electoral: 17

Note: Nixon won Virginia; however one Elector cast a vote for John Hospers
 
Let's see, Massachusetts 54.20% to the Democrat McGovern, 45.23% to the Republican Nixon.

Have the voting age remain at 21? I think that can even things up in the Bay State. The law was only changed in the run up to the primaries.

The District of Columbia is another matter, particularly if we're relying on no DC vote in the presidential election of 1972 at all.
 
Tricky Dick could have carried MA, although I can't think of a reason to make it happen. Perhaps a liberal, third party candidate. In OTL 1980, Reagan beat Carter there because of John Anderson siphoning away about 380,000 votes that Carter would have mostly got.
Now, DC, you would have to butterfly away their 3 electoral votes, there is no other way. Unless the Dems had run someone like David Duke.
 
I would suspect that, even had Nixon won such a sweeping victory - (which would involve a national result well over 2/3rds of the vote and a change in Civil Rights Policy vis-a-vis the GOP and the African-American community sufficient to keep that community voting GOP as they had up until at least 1932 {and a large proportion until 1960} and at the same time sufficiently acceptable to the South) - that one elector, at least, would have voted for Agnew or Jesus Christ in order to deny Nixon a unanimous vote, in order to keep such a result limited to the Father of the Country, George Washington. Such a result occurred in 1816, when James Madison was denied a unanimous result in the Electoral College after the Federalist Party was eliminated as a political force (due to a treasonous taint likely).

In order to achieve it, as has been pointed out, you first have to take Massachusetts, which would reasonably be acheived by limiting the vote to 21 year olds in a state with many residential college voters.

DC would need a change in African-American voting patterns as even then (before White / Suburban flight) they were half the vote.

You would also need to stop the faithless vote historically made.

You would finally need to overcome the tradition of non-unanimity that honors the pre-Partisan era of Washington.
 
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