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Almost 6 in 10 say they are following Jan. 6 panel’s work closely: poll

by Olafimihan Oshin - 06/23/22 11:50 AM ET

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Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) swears in Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R), Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Georgia Secretary of State Chief Operating Officer Gabriel Sterling during a House Jan. 6 committee hearing on Tuesday, June 21, 2022.

More than half of Americans said they are following the House select committee investigating the Jan 6, 2021, Capitol attack slew of hearings closely, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.

The poll, published on Thursday, found that 58 percent of respondents said they are following the committee’s hearings closely, with 26 percent following the hearings “very” closely and 32 percent following the hearings “somewhat” closely.

Seventeen percent of respondents said in the poll that they are not following the committee’s hearings that closely and 24 percent of those surveyed said they are not following the hearings at all, according to the poll.

Forty-six percent of those surveyed said that they believe former President Trump committed a crime on Jan 6, while 47 percent of respondents said he did not.

Forty-one percent of respondents said that Trump bears “a lot” of responsibility for the Capitol insurrection and 18 percent of those surveyed said that Trump has “some” responsibility of the eventual outcome of the insurrection.

Among party lines, 69 percent of Republican respondents said that Trump holds responsibility for the Capitol insurrection, while 92 percent of Democrat respondents agree with the same sentiment, according to the poll.

This comes amid a slew of public hearings being held by the Jan 6 committee investigating the Capitol insurrection in which pro-Trump supporters stormed the building in an effort to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election. The Capitol attack resulted in the deaths of five people.

Seventy-seven percent of respondents believe that extremism in the country is a bigger threat to the U.S. than extremism from other countries, while 17 percent of those surveyed said extremism from other countries is a more serious threat.

The Quinnipiac University poll was conducted from June 17 to June 20 with a total of 1,357 respondents surveyed in the questionnaire. The poll’s margin of error was 2.7 percentage points.