Nixon Wins Landslide Victory; Democrats Hold Senate, House

Advance indications were that between 80 million and 85 million would vote in this, the first election in American history where 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds were eligible to vote.

The census Bureau estimated that about 108 million of the 140 million Americans of voting age were registered or otherwise qualified to vote.

Mr. Nixon and his wife were up early in the morning to cast their ballots in a San Clemente, Calif., schoolhouse near the Western White House. The President spent more than five minutes in the voting booth -- apparently struggling like any other voter with the two-foot-long California ballot that contained referenda on issues from legalizing marijuana to reimposing the death penalty.

The First Family flew back across the country to the White House for a dinner with their two daughters and sons-in-law.

McGovern chose to go back to South Dakota to receive the returns that would mark the success or failure of his 22-month quest for the presidency.

The 50-year-old senator, who started the longest campaign of this century in January, 1971, voted in his boyhood town of Mitchell.

Accompanied by his wife, Eleanor, and four of their five children, McGovern cast what he said was a straight Democratic ballot in the classroom wing of a Congregational Church.

Mindful, perhaps, of the national polls predicting he would be defeated by landslide proportions, the Democratic nominee asked bystanders to "say a little prayer for me."

While McGovern awaited the outcome in Sioux Falls, an atmosphere of total confidence wrapped the White House.

Early in the evening, Communications Director Herbert G. Klein predicted Mr. Nixon would carry at least 48 states.

The election -- presumably the last in which Mr. Nixon would appear on the ballot -- marked the end of a long generation in American politics.

In came 26 years after his first victory -- an upset House win over Democrat Jerry Voorhis -- and 20 years after his election as Vice President on the Republican ticket headed by Dwight D. Eisenhower. It also came ten years to the day after the "last press conference" following his losing bid for the California governorship in 1962, a press conference in which he told newsmen, "You won't have Richard Nixon to kick around."