March 7 to June 6, 1972 1976 → 5,378,704 317,048 Start date 1972 | 18 0 86.9% 5.1% | |
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The 1972 Republican presidential primaries were the selection process by which voters of the Republican Party chose its nominee for President of the United States in the 1972 U.S. presidential election. Incumbent President Richard Nixon was again selected as the nominee through a series of primary elections and caucuses culminating in the 1972 Republican National Convention held from August 21 to August 23, 1972, in Miami, Florida.
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Primary race
Nixon was a popular incumbent president in 1972, as he seemed to have reached détente with China and the USSR. He shrugged off the first glimmers of what, after the election, became the massive Watergate scandal.
Polls showed that Nixon had a strong lead. He was challenged by two minor candidates, liberal Pete McCloskey of California and conservative John Ashbrook of Ohio. McCloskey ran as an anti-war and anti-Nixon candidate, while Ashbrook opposed Nixon's détente policies towards China and the Soviet Union. In the New Hampshire primary McCloskey's platform of peace garnered 19% of the vote to Nixon's 67%, with Ashbrook receiving 10%. Having previously stated that he would withdraw from the race had he not achieved 20% of the vote, McCloskey did so.
Nixon won 1,347 of the 1,348 delegates to the GOP convention, with McCloskey receiving the vote of one delegate from New Mexico.