Kavanaugh is right that the pardon might well have cost Ford the 1976 election, and also that public opinion warmed to the decision over the years. Gallup polling showed support for the pardon going from 38 percent shortly before he offered it to 35 percent in 1976, but up to 54 percent by 1986.
A Washington Post/ABC News poll tested the decision again in 2002 and found even stronger support: 59 percent of Americans said Ford had done the right thing, while 32 percent said he had done the wrong thing — a nearly 2-to-1 margin.
But more recent polling suggests that’s not really the case anymore. The pollster YouGov asked such questions in both 2014 and 2018, and Americans were actually about evenly split.
In the 2014 poll, 34 percent said Ford should have pardoned Nixon, but 32 percent said he shouldn’t have. The 2018 poll — notably conducted during Trump’s presidency and after Trump had talked about pardoning himself — showed nearly 4 in 10 both approved of and disapproved of the Nixon pardon.
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