The 1972 United States presidential election in Virginia took place on November 7, 1972. All 50 states and the District of Columbia were part of the 1972 United States presidential election. Virginia voters chose 12 electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president of the United States. This was also the first presidential election after the passage of the Twenty-sixth Amendment, which decreased the voting age from 21 to 18.

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1972 United States presidential election in Virginia

← 1968 November 7, 1972 1976 →

Nominee Richard Nixon George McGovern Party Republican Democratic Home state California South Dakota Running mate Spiro Agnew Sargent Shriver Electoral vote 11[lower-alpha 1] 0 Popular vote 988,493 438,887 Percentage 67.84% 30.12%

County and Independent City Results Nixon   50-60%   60-70%   70-80%   80-90% McGovern   60-70%

President before election Richard Nixon Republican Elected President Richard Nixon Republican

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For over sixty years Virginia had had the most restricted electorate in the United States due to a cumulative poll tax and literacy tests.^[1] Virginia would be almost entirely controlled by the conservative Democratic Byrd Organization for four of those decades,^[2] although during the Organization’s last twenty years of controlling the state it would direct many Virginia voters away from the national Democratic Party due to opposition to black civil rights and to the fiscal liberalism of the New Deal.^[3] After the Twenty-Fourth Amendment and Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections the state’s electorate would substantially expand as the burden of poll taxes on the lower classes was removed. Contemporaneously the postwar Republican trend of the Northeast-aligned Washington D.C. suburbs, which had begun as early as 1944, would accelerate^[4] and become intensified by the mobilisation of working-class Piedmont whites against a national Democratic Party strongly associated with black interests.^[5]

After 1966 the statewide Democratic party was severely divided into conservative, moderate and liberal factions,^[6] so that in addition to voting Republican in four of five presidential elections, Virginia’s Congressional delegation would gain a Republican majority as early as the 91st Congress, and Linwood Holton would become the first Republican governor since the 1880s Readjuster fusion. However, it was 1970 before significant GOP gains occurred in the state legislature, and it was generally acknowledged that President Nixon offered no support to down-ballot Republican candidates.^[7] As of 2020, this remains the strongest ever Republican presidential performance in Virginia.

Neither incumbent United States President Richard Nixon nor South Dakota Senator George McGovern of the Democratic Party campaigned in the state, which all polls had conceded to Nixon from the beginning of August.^[8]

78% of white voters supported Nixon while 22% supported McGovern.^[9][10]

Virginia was won by Nixon with a landslide 67.84 percent of the vote. Nixon also won the national election with 60.67 percent of the vote.

In strict accordance with national trends, McGovern carried just one county or independent city in Virginia — however, that jurisdiction, Charles City County, saw McGovern receive over 67 percent of the vote, and was his fourth-strongest county in the country.^[15] As of the 2020 presidential election^[update], this constitutes the last occasion the Republican Party has carried Brunswick County, Greensville County, Surry County, Sussex County, and the cities of Charlottesville, Norfolk, Petersburg, Portsmouth and Richmond.^[16] It is also the last occasion Virginia voted to the right of Wyoming.

However, Nixon did not win all of the electoral votes in Virginia because one of his pledged electors, Roger MacBride, instead cast his vote for Libertarian candidate John Hospers and his running mate, Tonie Nathan. Although Hospers was not on the ballot in Virginia, MacBride's vote was the first electoral vote ever cast for a female candidate (Nathan); MacBride was subsequently nominated as the Libertarian candidate for President in the next election. This was the first ever occasion where Franklin County and Nelson County voted Republican, the first since 1888 that Greensville County did so, the first since 1892 that Dinwiddle, Southampton, and Surry Counties did so, the first since 1900 that Henry County did so, the first time since 1920 that Wise County voted Republican, the first since 1924 that Buchanan County did so, and the first time since 1928 that Isle of Wight County and Portsmouth did so.