Majority thinks Trump to blame for Jan. 6, but don’t think he will be charged: poll

Fifty-seven percent of Americans believe former President Trump is to blame for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, but 61 percent of Americans say he will not be charged criminally for the attempted insurrection, according to an NPR-Marist-PBS News Hour poll published Thursday.

The 57 percent of Americans who say Trump deserves some of the blame is up from 53 percent in January, with the bump coming after the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 rioting at the U.S. Capitol held a series of hearings this summer into what led up to the attack.

According to the new poll, around 58 percent of Americans are paying a lot or some attention to the hearings this summer, which saw former Trump aides testify there was no credible evidence the 2020 election was rife with fraud.

Election officials in battleground states also testified about Trump’s attempt to influence them to swing the election his way.

Others called to testify said Trump pushed to have the Department of Justice (DOJ) intervene to investigate the election and detailed how the former president pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence to not certify the election results for Joe Biden.

The most explosive allegations came last month, when former aide Cassidy Hutchinson said Trump encouraged armed rioters to storm the Capitol and even lunged for the steering wheel in his motorcade to get to the federal building while the attack unfolded.

The House panel, which has attempted to paint Trump as directly responsible for Jan. 6 by inciting rioters to attack the Capitol with his rhetoric about a rigged election, has said it remains possible they will refer charges to the DOJ but reiterated they are still conducting an ongoing investigation.

Despite the allegations, only 50 percent of Americans say Trump should be charged with a crime, with 45 percent saying he should not be charged, according to the poll.

In contrast to the 61 percent of Americans who say they do not think Trump will be charge criminally for his role in the insurrection, 28 percent say they believe he will be charged criminally.

After all the buzz around Jan. 6, only about half of Americans say the attack on the Capitol was an insurrection, including 86 percent of Democrats, 52 percent of independents and 12 percent of Republicans, according to the poll.

Still, 77 percent of Americans say issues dividing the nation are a threat to democracy.

The House panel is taking a primetime slot Thursday night to present its final hearing into the Jan. 6 attack, which lawmakers say will focus heavily on the riot and what Trump did and didn’t do while the insurrection unfolded.

The allegations against the former president have not made much headway with voters, who say the most pressing issue ahead of the November midterm elections is inflation. In the new poll, 37 percent of Americans said that issue is the most important.

Trump has a 38 percent favorability rating among Americans, around the same percentage he had when he was in office.

The NPR-Marist-PBS News Hour poll was conducted July 11 to July 17 among 1,160 U.S. adults. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.