The House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 takeover of the Capitol is scheduled for a primetime hearing on Thursday focusing on what former President Donald Trump was doing during the attack.
About half of Americans in the latest Economist/YouGov poll hold Trump at least partly responsible for what happened that day: 51% say Trump has at least some responsibility; 41% give him a lot of the responsibility. However, just 17% of Republicans give Trump even “some” of the responsibility, something nearly half of Independents (46%) and many more Democrats (85%) do.
Data from the Economist/YouGov poll shows that opinion has not shifted much since January 2021 about how responsible Trump is for the attack.
By a small margin, Americans continue to be more likely to say Trump acted illegally around the events of January 6 than to say he didn't: 45% say he did, while 37% say he didn't. That’s similar to numbers from the week before (43% said he did; 38% said he did not). More Democrats say Trump did something illegal (78% say this, similar to 77% last week) than the shares of Republicans (13% this week, the same as last week) and Independents (39% say this, up slightly from 36% last week).
By 46% to 32%, Americans think that people in or associated with the Trump administration, other than Trump himself, committed illegal acts around the events of January 6. That’s similar to the numbers seen last week (43% to 33%). Democrats (76% this week, 74% last week) are much more likely than Republicans (17% this week and last week) to say Trump associates committed illegal acts, though 20% of Republicans are uncertain (down from 26% last week).
– Carl Bialik and Taylor Orth contributed to this article
This poll was conducted on July 16 - 19, 2022 among 1,500 U.S. adult citizens. Explore more on the methodology and data for this Economist/YouGov poll.
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