On 8th September 1974, Ford announced a pardon of disgraced Ex-President Nixon. There was national outrage and Ford’s approval rating sank from 71 to 49%. It could be argued that by pardoning the unpopular Nixon, Ford lost a lot of support which could have ultimately lost him his re-election. Watergate had many adverse effects on American people. It increased distrust in American politics and reinforced the view of many that the system was rotten and could easily lead to abuse of presidential power. The public were even more sceptical of the Republican Party after Watergate and the Party was severely damaged. The party moved to the right and after Ford was defeated the conservatives took over the Republicans. This shows that the party was not stable enough to win another election, which supports the view that the reason Ford wasn’t elected in 1976 was because of the legacy of Watergate.
However, many argue that Ford was never going to get re-elected anyway as he had a difficult relationship with Congress, which weakened his presidential authority. In Ford’s 29 months in presidency he vetoed 66 bills and Congress overrode 12 of them. To the American people that did not show Ford as a President who had good persuasion skills and his failure to persuade Congress to his viewpoint showed that he could never be a truly successful President. Ford changed his mind often, such as with the tax cuts issue. He was seen as a President without a clear sense of direction and one who compromised too soon and too easily. Americans didn’t want a President who seemed incapable of doing the job.
Ford also did nothing to help women, despite the rapidly growing female emancipation and feminism. As women make up around half the voters, Ford failed to give them a reason to vote for him. Ford also had no real ideas or impact on the problems that continued to face African-Americans and the fight for racial equality. Black people were still worse off than whites.
Ford faced opposition from Reagan and carter in the 1976 Presidential election. Reagan gave Ford a bad start against the Democratic candidate, Carter, after humiliating him during the campaign for the Republican nomination. Carter won the election because of Ford’s pardon of Nixon, the tired Republican Party and poor strategic decisions on Ford’s part. Some of Carter’s policies were very popular, such as his views on energy, welfare and health care.
In conclusion, the Watergate scandal had a great significance on the presidential campaign in 1974. However it was not the only reason; women’s rights, racial equality and Reagan’s opposition played a large part. The growing disillusionment in politics was reflected in the lowest voter turnout since 1948. Watergate probably caused most of this and was important, but could not be accepted as the only reason.
