39 percent in new poll say they have watched, listened to Jan. 6 hearings

Nearly 4 in 10 registered voters say they watched at least part of last week’s daytime hearings held by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to a new Politico-Morning Consult poll.

Eleven percent said they had watched the June 13 and June 16 hearings in full, 28 percent said they had watched part of the hearings and 62 percent said they hadn’t watched the hearings at all.

Each hearing has focused on a particular angle that builds the committee’s case that former President Trump was responsible for the Jan. 6 riot.

The two hearings polled centered on the acknowledgment by most of Trump’s inner circle that the former president lost the 2020 election and a pressure campaign by Trump and his allies on then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject Electoral College votes.

They were held during the day after the panel scheduled its first session in the series during prime time as part of efforts to cut through to wide swaths of the American public. Nearly 20 million Americans watched the first hearing across broadcast and cable networks.

Most respondents — 58 percent — said they had heard at least some about last week’s two daytime hearings, while 21 percent said they had heard nothing at all.

That figure fell when asked if respondents had heard about specific revelations from the hearings. 

Thirty-eight percent said they had heard at least some about retired federal Judge Michael Luttig’s statement to the panel that Trump and his allies instigated a war on democracy to stay in power, and 14 percent said they had heard a lot about the statement.

“The war on democracy instigated by the former president and his political party allies on Jan. 6 was the natural and foreseeable culmination of the war for America,” Luttig said in a written statement to the panel.

Similarly, 37 percent said they had heard at least some about an email discussed at the hearing that showed Trump campaign attorney John Eastman asking for a presidential pardon following the Capitol riot, with 14 percent saying they had heard a lot.

But when asked about a new claim that Kimberly Guilfoyle, who worked for Trump’s 2020 campaign and is Donald Trump Jr.’s fiancée, was paid $60,000 for her speech at the Ellipse rally on Jan. 6, only 3 in 10 respondents said they had heard at least some about the revelation.

That claim was made during Rep. Zoe Lofgren’s (D-Calif.) interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper following one of the panel’s sessions and was not made during a hearing itself.

Fifty-one percent said they had heard nothing at all about the alleged payment to Guilfoyle, the highest figure among the specific revelations polled.

The poll was conducted June 17 to June 20, which directly followed the two hearings polled but preceded the committee’s session on Trump’s pressure campaign against state and local officials held on Tuesday.

Pollsters conducted 2,004 online interviews with registered voters, and the margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.