Family Spokesman: George McGovern dead at age 90 - WKOW 27: Madison, WI Breaking News, Weather and Sports

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (WKOW) – A family spokesman said former U.S. Sen. George McGovern, the Democrat who lost to President Richard Nixon in 1972 in a historic landslide, has died at the age of 90.

The Spokesman, Steve Hildebrand, told The Associated Press by telephone that McGovern died at 5:15 a.m. Sunday at a hospice in Sioux Falls.  McGovern was surrounded by family and friends.

McGovern was a bomber pilot in World War II who became an early critic of the Vietnam War and a leader of the Democrat's liberal wing.

McGovern was elected to his first of three Senate terms in 1962.  He ran for president three times, including a try for the nomination in 1968 and 1984.

Despite the 1972 Watergate break-in, Nixon won a second term in one of the biggest landslides in modern history.