Talk:1972 Democratic Party presidential primaries

Untitled
Goodness, can't we give some dates on contests, whether they were primaries, caucuses, or conventions, and so forth? Wikipedia's entries on old presidential elections are terrible. john k (talk) 21:55, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Fred Harris
Fred Harris is mentioned as a candidate, as well as a "potential candidate who did not run". Which one is correct?Jeff5102 (talk) 11:25, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Primary contest
Why does the contest list on both this and the Republican article for 1972, end on June 6th? At least one contest took place after this, in New York on June 20th.--86.141.46.179 (talk) 17:25, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Problems
There are several specific problems with this article, beyond that it doesn't fully convey the unfolding narrative or the flavor of the campaign. There's no one best solution to the map problem, but the way it is cannot stand, because it is using different criteria from state to state. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:33, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The statement in the lead that "The 1972 primary was the first major party primary to hold races in every state" is unsourced. As the table in "Statewide contest by winner" indicates, there were only 25 or so identifiable statewide contests with popular votes attached to them.  The rest were caucuses, state party conventions, etc., which often had only partly conclusive results where the delegates chosen were often formally uncommitted but had leanings towards one candidate or another.
 * The statement that "Rep. Shirley Chisholm became both the first African American and first woman to win a presidential primary when she came in first in New Jersey" is not true in any meaningful sense and should be removed. In the June 6 New Jersey primary, there was a complex ballot that featured both a delegate selection vote and a non-binding, non-delegate-producing "beauty contest" presidential preference vote. In the delegate selection vote, McGovern defeated his main rival at that point, Humphrey, and won the large share of available delegates. Most of the Democratic candidates were not on the preference ballot, including McGovern and Humphrey; of the two that were, Chisholm and former governor of North Carolina Terry Sanford, Sanford had already withdrawn from the contest three weeks earlier. In the preference ballot voting, which the Associated Press described as "meaningless", Chisholm received the majority of votes. During the actual balloting at the national convention, Chisholm received votes from only 4 of New Jersey's 109 delegates, with 89 going to McGovern.  (See Shirley Chisholm for the sources behind these statements.)  Note that the New York Times obit for Chisholm said "She did not win a single primary".
 * The state-by-state map is very confused about what it is showing. Is it who won the primary or clear-cut caucus in that state?  If so, there should be about 25 states showing results and the rest should be grey.  Or is it who won the most delegate votes from that state during the actual roll call at the national convention?  In that case there can be results for every state.  To illustrate the confusion, Louisiana and Mississippi are colored for Chisholm, but she did not win those states at the time of delegate selection.  During the state party selection processes, both states were battles between McGovern and Wallace forces, with the Louisiana ones being formally uncommitted and the Mississippi ones the subject of a credentials challenge.  Then during the roll call, by which time McGovern's nomination was assured, some of his delegates cast symbolic votes for Chisholm instead (and there may have been some from disaffected Humphrey delegates too, in Mississippi). (Again, see Shirley Chisholm for the sources behind these statements.)  For more examples, New Hampshire and Illinois are colored for Muskie because he won primaries there, but by the time of the convention roll call, both went to McGovern.


 * Hearing no objections, I have done all of this, including commenting out the map and removing the 'states carried' totals. Awaits further work.  Wasted Time R (talk) 02:19, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

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Delegate count
Should we be including the numbers from the convention for the delegate count in the infobox? After all, these are not reflective of the delegates awarded during the primaries, as delegates shifted at the convention. SecretName101 (talk) 23:06, 1 February 2017 (UTC)


 * True enough, but at least it is a determinable figure that is available for each state. I've tried to get rid of the colored map in the infobox several times, for the reasons given in the "Problems" section above, but it keeps coming back, and still with its inconsistent and inaccurate meanings.  And what do the "Contests won" counts in the infobox refer to?  If it's primaries or caucuses, the totals should not add up to 50 because there weren't that many of them.  If it's delegate counts at the convention, the name should be changed to indicate that.  I fear that none of the other editors on this article were around in 1972 and have a feel for how the whole process worked at the time.  Wasted Time R (talk) 11:32, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Why isn't New York highlighted in the graph?
This was the first time New York held a presidential primary after all. Yourlocallordandsavior (talk) 23:26, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Can we not use the colored photos?
I mean, seriously. The McGovern and Wallace one look awful - not to mention the Wallace one is from 1962 - and Chisholm isn't even in color. Let's make them either all color or just have no color, please. River10000 (talk) 03:50, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 23:09, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Hubert Humphrey (1).jpg