Scammon was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and earned a bachelor's degree in political science from the
University of Minnesota in 1935. He later earned a master's degree from the
University of Michigan, also in political science. Scammon enlisted in the Army during World War II, attaining the rank of captain. He served in occupied Germany after the war, rising to head the military government's office of elections and political parties. After his discharge, he served as chief of the research division in Western Europe for the U.S.
Department of State from 1948 to 1955. Returning to his voting research, Scammon was hired by NBC News to direct its extensive election-night coverage in November 1968. He continued his work as a consultant for NBC until 1988. In 1976 he was elected as a
Fellow of the American Statistical Association. As an author, Scammon's most famous work was
The Real Majority: An Extraordinary Examination of the American Electorate (1970), co-authored with
Ben J. Wattenberg. The
New York Times described it as "arguing that, for the Democratic Party to survive, it needed to look beyond the economic issues that dominated the American electoral scene in the first half of the 20th century, [and] toward social issues that deeply disturbed voters in middle America." In Scammon's words, the typical voter was "unyoung, unpoor and unblack." His blunt phrasing "shocked many Democrats, but resonated true with others." And it presaged a shift away from the politics of the New Deal, and towards a more ideological politics, especially at the presidential level, that largely benefited Republicans in 1972, 1980, 1984 and 1988. Scammon was married to Mary Allen Scammon and lived in
Chevy Chase, Maryland for five decades. He died of
Alzheimer's disease at a rest home in
Gaithersburg. == References ==