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A new national poll suggests nearly half of Americans believe former President Donald Trump should be charged with a crime over his role in the January 6, 2021, storming of the US Capitol.
According to a poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 48% of adults nationwide say Trump is guilty of a crime for his role in the deadly attack by far-right extremists and other protesters aimed at overturning Congressional approval should be impeached The 2020 electoral college victory of current President Biden. Thirty-one percent of respondents said the former president should not be impeached, with one in five saying they didn’t know enough to form an opinion.
The poll was conducted June 23-27 after five public hearings by the Democrat-dominated House of Representatives investigating the Capitol riot — aimed at gathering testimony showing Trump’s potential criminal culpability in fueling the attack. But the poll was conducted ahead of Tuesday’s last-minute hearing by the committee that included former Trump White House adviser Cassidy Hutchinson, whose testimony made national headlines this week.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a senior adviser to Mark Meadows when he was White House Chief of Staff in the Trump administration, testifies Tuesday, June 28, 2022 before the Jan. 6 House Special Committee on Capitol Hill. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
There was an expected partisan divide over whether Trump should be charged with a crime, with 86% of Democrats polled saying he should, but Republicans saying he shouldn’t by a margin of 68% to 10%. Independents were more divided: 38% were unsure, 36% said the former president should be impeached and a quarter insisted he should not be impeached.
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In a separate question, 58% of all respondents said Trump bears major or fairly major responsibility for the attack on the Capitol.
The former president has repeatedly pilloried the committee and its statements on social media this month. Trump has attacked the panel as a “highly unselect committee,” accusing witnesses of “telling lies and fabricating stories,” producing “an entirely fabricated narrative.”
President Donald Trump arrives on January 6, 2021 to address a rally near the White House. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
According to the poll, 42% of Americans say they saw or listened to the hearings, while 57% say they didn’t watch or listen. Two-thirds of independents and just over seven in 10 Republicans say they neither watched nor heard the hearings.
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The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research surveyed 1,053 adults nationwide for the survey, with a total sample error of plus or minus four percentage points.
Paul Steinhauser is a political reporter from New Hampshire.