On June 9, the House of Representatives’ January 6 Select Committee
will hold its first of what are expected to be a series of prime-time public
hearings on the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. The committee is scheduled
to report its findings before the midterm elections. Where is public opinion on
the effort?

Pollsters haven’t been charting views about January 6 or the committee regularly. But as the hearings approach, they seem to be ready to return to it. A late March–early April Quinnipiac poll found that 41 percent of Republicans, 35 percent of Democrats, and 44 percent of independents were following the hearings not so closely or not closely at all. A more recent CBS News/YouGov online poll put down some new markers. In the poll, 46 percent nationally said it is very important and another 24 percent somewhat important to find out what happened on January 6 and who was involved. Those responses for Democrats were 69 and 20 percent, for independents they were 43 and 25 percent. Nearly half of Republicans (48 percent) said it was important (21 percent very and 27 percent somewhat).

In our deeply polarized political environment, it isn’t surprising that views about the work of the committee are divided. In a late April Economist/YouGov poll, 28 percent said the congressional investigation was a serious attempt to find out what really happened, while 38 percent said it was politically motivated, and 17 percent equally motivated by both of these sentiments. Fourteen percent of Democrats, 47 percent on independents, and 66 percent of Republicans said it was politically motivated.

Another late April ABC News/Washington Post poll introduced the subject by saying that a committee of the US House is investigating the events surrounding the riot at the Capitol last January 6. It, too, showed a deep division of opinion. Forty percent said the committee was conducting a fair and impartial investigation, while 40 percent said it was not.

These results rest on extensive trend data on views of Congress as a whole and on the parties there. In Monmouth University’s national poll taken in early May this year, 15 percent approved of how Congress was doing, while 77 percent disapproved. Approval was down from 35 percent in the honeymoon phase of Biden’s presidency in January 2021. The 77 percent disapproval figure was lower than at any time since the summer of 2016. The new Monmouth results were similar to the latest Economist/YouGov poll, which pegged Congress’s rating at 14 percent. In this poll, 26 percent of Democrats approved as did 6 percent of Republicans. Neither party in Congress is faring well. Quinnipiac’s new poll gave Republicans in Congress a 27 percent approval rating, similar to the 28 percent rating early in Biden’s term in February 2021. The comparison points for Democrats in the body were 30 percent in the new poll compared to 44 percent in February 2021.

Regular soundings from the Economist/YouGov polls show that around
two-thirds continue to believe Joe Biden was legitimately elected. Several
polls also suggest some overall weakening of Trump’s support among Republicans.
While Republicans continue to see him as the leader of the GOP, fewer (34
percent in the new NBC News poll) call themselves supporters of Donald Trump,
while 58 percent say they are supporters of the Republican Party.

Our own view is that Americans will stick to their early assessment about the events that day including the belief that Trump bears significant responsibility for what happened and that it was an attack on democracy. It is unclear how far the nation wants to go now, although the new ABC News/Washington Post poll suggests that a small majority, 52 percent, say Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the riot (42 percent disagree). Democrats and Republicans were mirror images of one another: Eighty-eight percent of Democrats support prosecuting him, 86 percent of Republicans do not. We don’t know at this time if the public’s strong reaction to the events that day will carry over to the next chapters, the forthcoming public hearings and the report the committee issues this fall.

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