A new poll by the Economist/YouGov finds that most Americans — 56% — believe that former President Donald Trump intentionally took classified documents when he left the White House. And these actions aren't viewed lightly: A majority considers it a very (45%) or somewhat (27%) serious matter for a president to take classified documents with them after leaving office. Americans are more likely to say that Trump has not cooperated in returning documents (42%) than to say he has cooperated (30%).
About half of people (49%) believe Trump should face criminal charges for his handling of classified documents. Views on charging the former president are highly partisan: 83% of Democrats support charges related to his handling of classified materials, compared to just 16% of Republicans
Related:
- Most Americans say Trump taking classified materials to Florida is wrong
- More Americans say Biden and Pence have cooperated with classified documents than say Trump has
- More Americans approve of the investigation into Biden's document handling than Trump's
- How do Americans evaluate Trump's and Clinton's security violations?
See the toplines and crosstabs from the Economist/YouGov poll conducted on June 3 - 6, 2023 among 1,500 U.S. adult citizens.
Methodology: Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel using sample matching. A random sample (stratified by gender, age, race, education, geographic region, and voter registration) was selected from the 2019 American Community Survey. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given prior to June 1, 2022, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (34% Democratic, 31% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 3%.
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