I find myself unable to make a map for such a race because there are so many contingencies.
The only way Carter would have been the Democratic nominee in 1972 is if he beat George Wallace head to head in the South. This was not accomplished by Terry Sanford, a Southern Governor, but Sanford did have a more liberal reputation than Carter did.
So let's say that Carter actually did this. What then? Carter would then have run as the Stop McGovern candidate. The first question would be how he would do this in Northern primaries and California? The second question would be why states, delegates, and elected officials in other non-Southern states would flock to Carter when they had HHH, Scoop Jackson, Ed Muskie, and others positioned to run (assuming that they wanted to stop McGovern).
Let's then say Carter makes it through this hurdle. He's got the leading number of delegates of any of McGovern's opposition. Then what?
Carter, a newcomer from a Right-to-Work state, will have to gain support from AFL-CIO delegates, big city delegations, and Northern liberals who will view him as a compromise choice that affords them the possibility of half a Democrat in the White House as opposed to Four More Years of Nixon. So he does this. The Jackson/HHH/Muskie/Wallace forces all see Carter as the strongest candidate versus Nixon. Do they all jump right in?
That depends on a lot of things. One thing it depends on is George Wallace supporters. For Wallace to endorse Carter is to give up being President. Would Wallace do it? And if he did, what would he extract for that? What would be the reaction of other liberals in the Anybody-But-McGovern coalition? Indeed, could Wallace get his forces to go along. Much of the South's Wallace delegations were not the Democratic Party establishment of those states (save Alabama). Their partisanship was singular; it was for George Wallace, and George Wallace, alone.
The other thing it would depend on was the reaction of the anti-Vietnam War movement. By 1972, most of the Democratic Party had come to a dovish position on Vietnam, but most of the Southern delegations were still somewhat hawkish. And that hawkishness had much to do with the military bases that were the foundation of many local Southern economies. But the McGovern left did not want this; they supported defense cuts, and would have viewed a hawkish platform as a sellout. The possibility of a liberal bolting of the Democratic Party would have been real.
Richard Nixon would have defeated Jimmy Carter in 1972. He would have beaten him significantly. The issue would have been as to whether or not Carter would have lost in a way where he added strength to the Democratic Party from 1968. That would have required him to (A) win at least SOME Southern states, (B) hold the biggest Democratic strongholds in line, and (C) not alienate anyone with the watered down compromise positions that such a nomination would require.
Carter would have had SOME advantages:
1. He would have likely won the endorsements of most elected officials in the South. Local Southern politicians would be announcing that they supported carter and would campaign for him.
2. He may well have gotten an endorsement from George Wallace, even if it was little more than Wallace stating that he would vote for Carter.
3. The AFL-CIO would have endorsed him. It was McGovern's anti-defense platform that threatened union jobs in defense industries that George Meany resisted.
4. The Democratic Party was the majority party of the time.
5. There would likely have been no "Democrats for Nixon" on the scale John Connally rounded up on behalf of Nixon. In such a campaign as this, Nixon would not have been able to "tilt everything to the right", which was his stated strategy once the Democrats nominated the leftish McGovern.
In the end, I think Carter would have lost most of the South. I do believe, however, that Carter would have done far better in the South than any other Democrat, and would have been competitive in a number of Southern states that he lost.
Thanks for the interesting and thoughtful analysis, but I confused about the map. Why is Carter winning the upper midwest, Washington, and New York but at the same time losing almost all of the south? The South was still strongly Democratic at the time, and Carter was a politician from the region who could actually appeal to their interests, as shown through his strength there in 1976 and 1980. He didn't have the problems down there that Johnson or Humphrey had. What here causes almost all the southern states hold for Nixon solidly against a Southern Democrat who was well suited for the region? Shouldn't the South be Carter's strongest region as it was in 76 and 80?
