Ellen McCormack


Ellen Cullen McCormack was a candidate for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 1976. McCormack was one of the first female candidates for president, alongside women like Shirley Chisholm.

Life

On September 15, 1926 Eleanor Rose Cullen was born in The Bronx borough of New York City to Irish immigrants William and Ellen Cullen. In 1949 she married Francis J. McCormack after meeting him at a dance and would have four children with him.
McCormack, generally identified during her 1976 campaign as a "housewife", appeared on the ballot in 18 states, more than any female candidate to that point. She was also the first woman to raise enough money to qualify for federal matching funds and Secret Service protection. She ran on an exclusively pro-life platform and won no primaries, but had her name placed into nomination and received 22 votes from delegates at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, and engaged in a debate that also included future President Jimmy Carter.
During the 1980 presidential election she ran as the presidential nominee of the New York State Right to Life Party with Carroll Driscoll as her running mate. They received 32,327 votes.
She had been a chairwoman of the New York Right to Life Party, and was their candidate for Lieutenant Governor of New York in 1978.
On March 27, 2011 she died in an assisted -living facility in Avon, Connecticut after a long period with a heart ailment which originated during one of her pregnancies.