United States Presidential Election, 1972 (Dewey Defeats Truman)

The United States presidential election of 1972 was the 47th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 1972. Edmund Muskie, the Democratic nominee, defeated incumbent Nelson Rockefeller, the Republican nominee, in the largest electoral landslide in American history.

Muskie's victory ushered in sixteen years of Democratic victories, a run not seen since the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration. The increasingly hardline Democratic anticommunism, particularly in the person of running mate Henry Jackson, and in the light of unrest in Asia, was seen as the deciding factor in Muskie's massive win.