However, most Americans (55%) said the Committee’s report did not change their views on the issue
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Premise released the results of a poll conducted to gauge public perception on the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol. The poll found that a majority of respondents (56%) strongly or somewhat agreed with the House Jan. 6th Committee’s findings that former President Donald Trump was responsible for the attack at the Capitol.
Premise surveyed Americans on a number of questions related to the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol weeks after the Committee issued its final report. The Committee’s report concluded that Trump was responsible for the attack at the Capitol and issued a criminal referral to the Department of Justice (“DOJ”).
“The findings reveal that Americans remain divided on their interpretation of the events of Jan 6th despite the conclusion the House Jan 6th Committee has reached,” said Maury Blackman, President and CEO of Premise. “The most important common denominators among Americans are that the Committee’s findings did not change their views, that the country remains divided along party lines, and violence is never the answer to pursue political goals.”
Here are some prominent findings from the Premise Poll released today:
- When asked who they felt was most responsible for the events on Jan. 6, 42% of respondents said Trump and 40% said the rioters themselves. Of the remaining, 14% blamed Democrats in Congress and 4% blamed Republicans in Congress.
- Republican respondents were less likely to blame Trump, with only 9% choosing the former president and 61% blaming the rioters themselves. 72% of Democrats and 34% of Independents viewed Trump as most responsible.
- A majority of respondents (58%) did not feel that the Committee’s findings changed their view one way or another on the events of Jan. 6th.
- 58% said the Committee findings did not change their views on the events, and 55% said the findings did not change their views on Trump’s responsibility.
- Democrat respondents were more likely to respond that the Committee’s findings affected their views. 50% of Democrats said the events were shown to be worse than they thought before the investigation, and 48% said that Committee’s findings showed Trump was more responsible than they thought.
- Over three quarters (77%) of Republicans disagreed with the Committee’s decision to send a criminal referral of Trump to the DOJ, and 80% disagreed with the Committee’s conclusion that Trump was responsible for the attack.
- 61% of Democrats found the Committee’s investigation to be fair while 47% of Republicans did not. A plurality of Independents (46%) said they didn’t know enough and were generally split with 28% viewing the investigation as fair while 26% didn’t.
- Most Americans (45%) describe the events of Jan. 6th as a riot while nearly a third (30%) viewed it as a protest and a quarter (25%) call it a coup attempt.
- Nearly half (49%) of Republicans call the events a protest, and 49% of independents describe it as a riot. Most Democrats (48%) call the events a riot and over a third (38%) describe it as a coup attempt.
- Consistent across all parties, the majority (70%) of respondents viewed the country as more divided on important values than 10 years ago.
- The vast majority of Americans (73%) responded that it is never justified for people to use violence to pursue political goals in a democracy.
- But 22% of Democrats and 26% of Republicans said violence for political goals was sometimes justified.
This poll was conducted online within the United States between December 22-25, among 2,029 participants by Premise Data Corporation.
Methodology
These results are based on responses from 2,029 Americans collected between December 22-25 via the Premise smartphone application. Premise randomly sampled its opt-in panel members, stratified on Age, Gender, Region and Education, based on the 2019 American Community Survey (ACS). The results are weighted by Age, Gender, Region and Education benchmarked against the 2019 ACS estimates. Respondents were compensated for their completion of the survey through the Premise app.
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