C’mon! Nixon carried 31 States and won over 300 EV. The pop vote was close but that doesn’t matter in our system.
Do you remember the 1968 election? I do. The numbers you recite are because people got fed up with violent street thuggery. They had had a belly full and voted as such
People in citing these numbers sometimes forget that George Wallace ran a very strong third. He won 5 Southern states 45 electoral votes and almost 10 million popular votes! He almost succeeded in his quest to throw the race into the House of Representatives.