Nixon also had a whole lot of things going for him, he was hardly an unpopular president and the watergate scandal is sort of ridiculous with hindsight because he won re-election by a wide margin. The 1968 election was close and he likely would have lost if not for the trainwreck that was Wallace, but in 1972 he absolutely trounced McGovern.

Nixon was a generally popular president and it took a long time for his support to start slipping. His famous line "People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got." wasn't nearly as in poor taste as it seems in hindsight.