New poll results show that fewer than 50% of the public now hold former President Donald Trump responsible for Jan. 6.
The percentage who believe Trump is “solely” or “mainly” responsible for the Capitol riot dropped to 45% in comparison to 52% in the days following the attack, according to an NBC poll.
A combined 55% now say the former president is only “somewhat” or “not really” responsible.
The results seem to indicate that the House Jan. 6 select committee has some work to do regarding the shift in public opinion as it prepares for its first public hearing this Thursday.
A series of six to eight hearings are expected to take place throughout June, with the goal of making a case to the public about the committee’s findings over the past year.
“The public needs to know, needs to hear from people under oath about what led up to Jan. 6 and, to some degree, what has continued after Jan. 6,” said committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS).
The committee is composed of seven Democrats and two Republicans, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), who broke with party leadership after Republicans decided to boycott the panel.
“It is extremely broad. It’s extremely well organized. It’s really chilling,” Cheney told CBS Sunday Morning when asked about the hearing and if the attack amounted to a conspiracy. “I have not learned anything that has made me less concerned.”
“We are thankfully not at a moment of civil war, but we are certainly at a time of testing,” Cheney added. “We are absolutely in a moment where we have to make a decision about whether we’re going to put our love of this country above partisanship. And to me, there’s just, there’s no gray area in that question.”
The poll interviewed 1,000 adults between May 5-7 and 9-10. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Reporting from The Washington Examiner.
