Poll: Would prosecuting Trump be ‘too political’?
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
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(NewsNation) — Voters in September’s NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ poll were split on the idea that if former President Donald Trump announced he would run for president, charging him with a crime would be considered “too political.”
About 51% of voters said prosecution would be too political, while 49% disagreed with that idea. according to poll results released Tuesday.
Decision Desk HQ Senior Data Scientist Kiel Williams noted the results were heavily skewed along political party affiliations, with 77% of Republicans polled believing it would be too political and 70% of surveyed Democrats saying it would not.
Among Independents, it’s a little more down-the-middle with 46% saying prosecution would be too political.
Williams pointed out Independents have skewed away from Trump in recent polling.
“We see this dichotomy here between, you know, I disliked Donald Trump and I want to move on, versus I disliked Donald Trump and I actually want to see him, you know, be subject to a criminal process,” Williams said.
In the previous NewsNation/ Decision Desk HQ poll, more than 60% of surveyors reported they approved the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, the president’s Florida home, where agents found documents containing top-secret information.
Willaims said while the two questions are similar, it’s tough to give an apples-to-apples comparison of the two responses.
“You can imagine as an independent, someone who doesn’t necessarily think of themselves as a Democrat or Republican saying, well, this Mar-a-Lago raid, maybe in my mind, you know, seems justified to me,” Williams said. “But do I actually want to see a former president actually go to prison or something or be prosecuted or something like that?”
Following the FBI raid on the former president’s Florida home, Trump’s legal team and the Department of Justice have traded motions in federal court over how the investigation will continue to play out.
As for the former president’s 2024 hopes, 55% of all respondents said they would not want to see Trump run again, including 61% of Independents.
By party lines, 60% of Republicans want Trump to be their nominee, while 84% of Democrats say they would not want to see his name on the ballot again.
