On the 40th anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation, only a narrow majority of Americans still think Watergate was a very serious matter and nearly half think the scandal was "just politics." 

According to a new national poll by CNN/ORC International, just 51 percent of Americans consider the events of Watergate and Nixon's resignation to be a "serious matter," while 46 percent consider it to be "just politics" when pollsters asked the following question: "Now thinking for a moment about the Watergate affair during President Richard Nixon's administration. It has now been 40 years since Nixon resigned as president. Which of these two statements comes closest to your own point of view about Watergate — it was a very serious matter because it revealed corruption in the Nixon administration or it was just politics — the kind of thing that both parties engage in?"