those surveyed by Gallup reported Watergate had made them less likely than
before to vote for a Republican in the 1974 congressional races.” (McLeod 1977,
p.181). Additionally, of the 31 percent surveyed there were an “appreciable
number of Independents and Republicans” (McLeod 1977, p.184) showing the
deep impacts that Watergate had on not just Nixon but also the Republican
Party. This shows how the shock of the Watergate scandal prompted American
voters and more specifically Republicans to demonstrate their disappointment
and falling trust in the president through established institutional methods. Due
to their lack of trust, American voters exercised their right to abstain from voting
to protest the actions undertaken by Nixon and his administration, something
that has been clearly evidenced by the previous polls. The fallout of Watergate
in the 1974 presidential elections is a clear indication of the use of conventional
methods of political participation by American voters as Americans clearly used
both legal and institutionalised methods of political participation in order to
display their disappointment and distrust in President Nixon's actions. While the
argument may be made that this case study doesn’t count towards political
participation as people didn’t actually vote, this report attests that as Americans
didn’t resort to more unconventional methods of political participation, such as
riots or protests, their lack of voting remains entirely conventional.
6.2). Why did this event happen?
Watergate set the foundations for particularised distrust in a US president. A
noteworthy example of this can be seen from Theodore H White, a journalist and
American historian, who at the time of the news on the Watergate scandal
breaking was in the process of completing his book on President Nixon which
was titled "The Making of the President"(White 1977, p.258). When the news of
the scandal broke, Whites' book was focused on portraying “Nixon the
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