ABC News: 1972 Election Night Coverage

Source:ABC News- anchor Frank Reynolds.

"This is the first part of ABC's Election Night Coverage from 1972. The quality is not the best but it is not my fault, it happens to be 39 years old!  This is the first twenty min of the coverage, I cut out the 7:22-7:29 footage I will upload it separately, Sam Donaldson is in charge of that

The anchormen are Howard K. Smith and Harry Reasoner, who were on opposite sides of the political spectrum, so you can feel the awkwardness. Also shown is Frank Reynolds and Tom Jarell who were the two main network correspondents for the candidates. This also includes commercials, but ABC only had two sponsors Ford Motors and JC Penny. 

I also have CBS's Coverage from EN 1972 as well, and I will upload both parts at the same time, it is only 2 hrs and has local segments. This is 4 hrs and 45 min and has no local breaks." 

From EFan

As big as President Nixon's victory was, it didn't do him much good in Congress in electing more House and Senate Republicans. 

Washington Post political columnist David Broder in a 1990 PBS documentary about Richard Nixon, called Richard Nixon's 1972 reelection a selfish victory because the Nixon Campaign hoard all the recourses from the Republican National Committee into the Nixon Reelect. When the fact was President Nixon would have beaten Far-Left Democratic nominee Senator George McGovern in a landslide anyway. Maybe not with 49 states and 60 percent of the vote, but if they ran a normal campaign Nixon beats McGovern anyway with probably 55% percent or more of the electorate and would have won 40 plus states. 

A Nixon 10 point victory over McGovern,  would have freed up resources to the Republican Congressional campaign committees in the House and Senate. And maybe Republicans win back the House or Senate,. but would have certainly increased their numbers there in a big way. And perhaps saved the Nixon Presidency in 1974, because he would have the political support in Congress to protect him from impeachment and then later conviction because of Watergate.