It was, but there was also a vengeance component. Remember in the '68 election Nixon beat their Anointed One, but then it was Hubert Humphrey and not Hillary Clinton. But it came down to a fraction of a point in the PV but a wider margin in the EV. Similar to the 2016 outcome. Back then it was Get Nixon. Now its Get Trump. For the 'Rats, hatred is a multigenerational trait. Its in their genes, as sure as body type and eye color.
Don’t forget, Nixon defeated Helen Gahagan Douglas in 1950 for California senator. They had it in for him ever since.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Gahagan_Douglas
In a race that was remembered as one of the most vicious in California political history, Nixon’s charges were intentionally directed towards the character assassination of Gahagan Douglas.[18] Nixon implied that she was a Communist “fellow traveler” by comparing her votes to those of the far-left, pro-Soviet Representative Vito Marcantonio, and deployed anti-Semitic surrogates to call on voters to reject her because her husband, Melvyn, was Jewish.[18]