Republicans increasingly viewed by Americans as the party of violence
The findings of the survey come as House Democrats have shifted toward a strategy of emphasizing the extremism of both Republican candidates and the MAGA movement. The Jan. 6 hearings appear to be helping their case as the nation awaits another primetime hearing Thursday (starting at 8:00 PM ET/5:00 PM PT).
When the survey asked those who viewed GOP supporters as more violence-prone an open-ended question about why, the dominant themes centered around “January 6th,” “Trump,” “white groups,” and “Proud Boys.”
By a 20-point margin, the Navigator survey found Americans support the Justice Department filing criminal charges against Donald Trump for his involvement in Jan. 6 (56% support, 36% oppose). Independents support filing charges by a 24-point margin (50% support, 26% oppose). The bar graph below notes too that support for filing charges increases—9 points among independents, 13 points among Republicans—after respondents read recent revelations from the select committee’s inquiry into Jan. 6 hearings. So the more people know, the better.
An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll similarly found a 57% majority of Americans say Trump bears either a great deal or good deal of responsibility for the Jan. 6 insurrection.
But the NPR poll found that just half of the respondents think Trump should be charged with a crime, while 45% say he shouldn’t—a much smaller divide than Navigator found. However, the number of Americans who think Trump actually will be charged sits at just 28% in the NPR survey.
