12. Losing by more than eighteen million votes in a historic landslide, Democratic candidate George McGovern was forced to change his running mate in the middle of the 1972 presidential election after the disclosure of his original choice’s poor mental health history
Distinguishing himself in his youth as a bomber pilot during the Second World War, after earning his doctorate George McGovern was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1956. Becoming a prominent Democratic Senator during the 1960s, following an unsuccessful effort to win the party’s nomination in 1968, as well as an end to the Vietnam War through legislative means, McGovern triumphantly galvanized the liberal wing to clinch the nomination four years later. Resulting in an ideological split within the party, with an “Anybody But McGovern” coalition formed in the weeks following the primaries, McGovern only made matters worse with his choice of running mate.
Selecting without vetting and in a hurried process Missouri Senator Thomas Eagleton, his partner quickly became embroiled in a serious of controversies. Most damaging to the ticket was the revelation just two weeks later that Eagleton had undergone electroshock therapy for “nervous exhaustion” and “depression” several times. Forced, for the first time in history, to change the presidential ticket mid-race, replacing Eagleton with Sargent Shriver, McGovern never recovered. Republican Richard Nixon won re-election by historic margins, with McGovern carrying just 37.5 percent of the popular vote and winning just a single state, Massachusetts, alongside the District of Colombia.