1972 United States presidential election

The 1972 United States presidential election was both the national contest that returned Richard Nixon to the presidency and a turning point in the working conditions of The Washington Post’s Watergate investigation. As Election Day approached, sources grew less willing to talk; after Nixon won, the newsroom expected that the charge that the paper was trying to elect George McGovern would lose force, and planned to reopen old lines of inquiry.

A Campaign Stalled by the Approaching Vote

In the final stretch, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein found themselves meeting one stone wall after another. Their evening visits to people connected with the campaign produced nothing. Several people suggested they might speak more freely after Nixon’s victory, making the election not merely a political deadline but a possible change in access to information.

The reporters also faced a public argument about their own motives. Nixon’s re-election was expected to undercut the White House line that The Washington Post was working for George McGovern. The campaign’s result would not settle the Watergate investigation, but it could change how the paper’s reporting was received and how readily sources risked talking to its reporters.

Election Day in the Newsroom

On Election Day, Woodward spent much of the day at the office while Barry Sussman studied polling figures, working through calculations to see whether the surveys could be wrong. Sussman concluded that it was mathematically impossible for Richard Nixon to lose. The scene placed the newsroom’s campaign-watch alongside its stalled investigation: the election outcome appeared predictable, while the next development in Watergate did not.

Woodward, a registered Republican, did not vote. He was uncertain whether he felt more troubled by what he saw as disorganization and naïve idealism in George McGovern’s campaign or by Richard Nixon’s conduct. He believed abstaining would help him report on Watergate more objectively, a view Carl Bernstein considered silly. Bernstein voted for McGovern without enthusiasm or hesitation, then bet in the office pool that Nixon would win with 54 percent.

The Result and the Investigation

The day after the election, Ben Bradlee and Howard Simons asked Sussman for a memorandum outlining how Woodward and Bernstein intended to continue their investigation and identifying its areas of focus. Sussman understood the request as evidence of pressure for a story that might relieve criticism of The Washington Post and rebut the notion that it had promoted McGovern’s campaign. Woodward was angered by the request; he and Bernstein told Sussman to write whatever he wished for the editors.

Sussman’s memorandum said the reporters would return to nearly every old source and approach some new ones who appeared more willing to talk now that the election was over. It also acknowledged that some of their strongest stories had arrived unexpectedly, rather than from a fixed investigative plan. Nixon’s victory therefore altered the political atmosphere but did not produce an immediate breakthrough. The reporters were left to resume their search, with renewed access only a possibility and the direction of the next story still uncertain.