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An overwhelming majority of Americans disapprove of the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan.6, but most Republicans say President Donald Trump was not responsible for the assault – and nearly half say Republican lawmakers did not go far enough to support the president’s efforts to reverse the situation. election results, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The poll – which polls 1,002 American adults and was conducted Jan. 10-13 – paints a striking picture and finds a national consensus on the inappropriateness of what happened on Capitol Hill, while revealing familiar divisions over who is to blame for the episode. .
The poll found that nearly 9 in 10 Americans oppose the assault on Capitol Hill, and 80% strongly oppose the attack.
But the country’s divisions are apparent in the questions about who is to blame – and what, if any, are the repercussions Trump would face for promoting a “savage” rally that ultimately invaded the country’s legislature and resulted in the death of five people.
While the majority of the public disapproves of the president’s behavior, Trump still retains a significant, albeit somewhat diminished, degree of support from Republicans, as does his disinformation campaign to discredit the 2020 election results.
The poll found that 56% of Americans believe Congress should remove Trump from office and prevent him from holding elected office in the future. But among Republicans, 89% oppose such a course of action.
The reason seems simple: Pollsters found that most Republicans didn’t think he had done anything wrong.
While 66% of Americans believe Trump has acted irresponsibly in his statements and actions since the election, 66% of Republicans believe he has acted responsibly, according to the poll.
And while 57% of Americans think Trump bears a great deal or a great deal of responsibility for the violent attack, 56% of Republicans say Trump is not responsible – and 22% say he bears some of it.
A large percentage of Republicans also believe that GOP leaders should in fact have gone further in their efforts to support Trump’s attempt to overturn the election results. While 52% of Americans believe GOP leaders went too far in supporting Trump’s false statements about election results, 48% of Republicans said they did not go far enough.
A similar division is also apparent in the poll results over whether Trump should be held legally responsible for the attack. Most Americans think he should be criminally charged for his role; only 1 in 8 Republican agrees.
These findings from Republicans reluctant to blame Trump are consistent with trends in other investigations. As Vox’s Sean Collins wrote in an analysis of polls taken immediately after the attack on Capitol Hill, a large portion of Republicans are inclined to believe that the riot was not just Trump’s fault, but in fact something thing Democrats should be blamed for.
“Instead of putting the insurgency at Trump’s feet, 52% of Republicans told YouGov it was actually Biden’s fault; 42% of Republicans told Morning Consult the same – and 48% of Republicans told Morning Consult Democrats in Congress were also to blame, ”Collins wrote last week.
Trump’s support fell sharply, but didn’t collapse
There are, however, signs that a significant number of Republicans are skeptical that Trump is the right leader for their party going forward. According to the new Washington Post-ABC News poll, fewer than six in 10 Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents say party leaders should follow Trump’s lead in the future, while 35% say they should away from Trump – “a sentiment that has roughly doubled from 18% in 2018.”
As the FiveThirtyEight approval poll follow-up shows, Trump’s support suffered one of the biggest drops in his presidency after the attack, and he hit the lowest level of support in his tenure, with an average of about 38% approval and 58% disapproval. A change in the Republicans’ perspective explains much of the drop.
The Conservatives’ continued commitment to Trump poses significant dilemmas for Republicans after Trump leaves. Lately, Trump has taken a somewhat contradictory stance against certain segments of his party, threatening to back key opponents of lawmakers he doesn’t like. Establishment Republicans fear that a Trump-fueled party split could hurt their prospects as they prepare for the midterm election.
And some Republican lawmakers find Trump’s political style unpredictable, too transgressive of political norms, and a distraction from their political agenda. This would partly explain why Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would consider voting to convict Trump in a Senate impeachment trial and why some Republicans are already scrambling to defeat Trump-style candidates in the 2022 election.
But, as this poll shows, Trump still has the enthusiastic support of many GOP members. Regardless of how the main party lawmakers may view it, they could risk alienating their own base if they tried to stray too far from him or sanction him.
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