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McGovern failed to win the presidency despite the unearthing of the Watergate scandal, which did not derail until to late, according to Newsday. McGovern also had many embarrassing missteps.

He selected Missouri Sen. Thomas F. Eagleton as his running mate just 18 days before it was announced he had undergone electroshock therapy for depression. He was later dropped from the ticket.

R. Sargent Shriver became his new running mate. The two carried only Massachusetts and D.C. and won only 38 percent of the popular vote. The election was one of the biggest losses in American history.

The Washington Post said that his loss helped shape the Democratic Party:

In a public career spanning more than five decades, Sen. McGovern may be best remembered as a presidential candidate of near-epic futility, in which he lost 49 of 50 states. The senator’s liberal agenda — supporting civil rights and anti-poverty programs and strongly denouncing the Vietnam War — were critical to his landslide defeat to President Richard Nixon. But those views also helped define the future vision of the Democratic Party.

“In many ways, he revolutionized the Democratic Party,” said Ross K. Baker, a Rutgers University political science professor and an authority on congressional politics. “His followers drove out the old guard. Some would say it was the end of the old Democrats, but others would say, no, it opened up the party to women and others.”

McGovern was known for being a staunch liberal senator from South Dakota and arguing against the Vietnam War.

"I am a liberal and always have been," McGovern said in 2001, reports Newsday. "Just not the wild-eyed character the Republicans made me out to be."

He was born on July 19. 1922 in Avon, S.D. He attended Dakota Wesleyan University.

He volunteered for the Army Air Force after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor where he served as a bomber pilot.

After the war ended, McGovern studied history and political science at Northwestern University. He then taught history and government at Dakota Wesleyan.

In 1953 he became the executive secretary of the South Dakota Democratic Party. Three years later, he won election in the House where he served two terms.

He then ran for Senator. He lost his first bid, but in 1962 narrowly won a seat. He became a three-term senator, according to the Washington Post.

McGovern has ran for president numerous times and has served many other roles in the government including U.S. ambassador to the Rome-based United Nation's food agencies.

“George McGovern dedicated his life to serving the country he loved,” President Barack Obama said in a statement.  “He signed up to fight in World War II, and became a decorated bomber pilot over the battlefields of Europe.  When the people of South Dakota sent him to Washington, this hero of war became a champion for peace.  And after his career in Congress, he became a leading voice in the fight against hunger.  George was a statesman of great conscience and conviction, and Michelle and I share our thoughts and prayers with his family.”

His funeral will be held in Sioux Falls.

Reach Executive Producer Hannah Madans here.