In the general election on November 7, 1972, the McGovern–Shriver ticket suffered a 61 percent to 37 percent defeat to Nixon – at the time, the second biggest landslide in American history, with an Electoral College total of 520 to 17. McGovern's two electoral vote victories came in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, and he failed to win his home state of South Dakota (which, however, had gone Democratic in only three of the previous eighteen presidential elections, and which would continue to go Republican in presidential elections to come). Over the nation as a whole he carried a mere 135 counties. At just over four percent of the nation's counties, McGovern's county wins remain the fewest by almost a factor of three for any major-party nominee.