Every major scandal is compared to Watergate by the media. All presidents face scandals big and small, but for 50 years, Watergate has been the scandal to which all scandals before and after are measured. After five decades, how does the Watergate scandal rank relative to other major presidential scandals stretching back to the late 1800s? Using an expert survey of scholars of the presidency, we probe where Watergate ranks in the pantheon of presidential scandals. The findings suggest Watergate still ranks above and beyond all the others as the most consequential scandal in presidential history, followed by Iran–Contra and the Trump–Ukraine scandal. Personal scandals, such as the Clinton–Lewinsky affair, Andrew Jackson’s marriage to his wife while she was married to another man and Donald Trump’s affair with Stormy Daniels, are less important relative to Watergate than other scandals involving public funds and political corruption. The results illustrate why Watergate is still the most important – and standard-defining – scandal in American political history.
Brandon Rottinghaus (2024) studied this question.