Poll shows some shift in views of former President Trump since hearings on Jan. 6

Morning Consult, a business-oriented polling and research firm, is out with a few poll numbers measuring public views of former President Donald Trump before and after the recent congressional hearings into the Jan. 6 Trump-inspired lethal riots at the U.S. Capitol.

The movement in the most recent poll was mostly in the right direction (according to me); namely, while a majority of respondents has consistently said that that Trump was “at least somewhat responsible for the events that led to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack,” the size of that majority has grown, and the increase has come mostly from respondents who described themselves as “independents,” rather than Democrats or Republicans.

This link will get you the results, broken into three groups, Democrats, Republicans and independents. You’ll see that the numbers don’t change much among Democrats or Republicans. In four samplings over June and July, a large majority of Democrats (unsurprisingly) has said that Trump was at least somewhat responsible for the events that led to the Jan. 6 attacks, but the majority has barely budged in a narrow band from 85% to 87%. Likewise, the much smaller portion of Republicans who held Trump responsible has grown from a low of 28% to a high of 31% with the most recent poll showing 29% of Republicans who felt that way.  In both cases, the variation is margin of error stuff.

But the number of independents who held Trump responsible has risen in each of the last three samples, from 53%, to 58% and most recently (a July 22-24 sampling) to 63%.

I wouldn’t get carried away with this. But it’s encouraging that the group that best represents the swing vote in a presidential election has moved steadily in favor of holding Trump accountable.

It’s not a horse-race question. But it seems likely that those who hold Trump responsible for a violent riot are unlikely, or at least less likely, to support him in 2024. Of course, I don’t know what Trump will try to do in 2024, although I feel I know what he would like to do. But based on these polls, he cuts a much less intimidating figure heading into the speculation of what the next presidential cycle might bring.

The full picture, with all the trends, can be viewed here. It’s way too soon to be fixating on 2024, but the winds are shifting against Trump, who already lost the popular vote in both of the last two elections.

The full Morning Consult poll numbers and writeup can be accessed via this link.