More Americans think Trump should face charges in hush money scandal: poll

More Americans than not believe that former President Trump should face charges in the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into a hush money payment he made before the 2016 election, according to a new The Economist/YouGov poll. 

Forty-six percent of respondents to the survey said that Trump, who over the weekend had said he expected to be arrested on Tuesday in the probe, should be indicted for his actions, compared to 34 percent who said he shouldn’t. The remaining 20 percent were unsure.

Only 14 percent of registered Republicans who responded said that Trump should face criminal charges over the payment to adult film performer Stormy Daniels, while 63 percent said he should not. By comparison, 77 percent of Democrat respondents said the former president should be charged, with 11 percent saying he shouldn’t.

Charges also have the support of 44 percent of Independents, compared to 30 percent who said Trump should not charged.

Among all respondents, 69 percent said a political candidate paying someone for their silence is a crime, and 74 percent said it’s a crime “for a candidate to fail to report spending campaign money on payments to keep someone silent about an issue that may affect the outcome of an election.”

Both questions, however, saw double-digit drops in “yes” responses from Republicans over the past week.

The survey comes as the New York grand jury investigating the hush money payment saw a scheduled Wednesday meeting canceled, with jurors reportedly told to be on standby to report Thursday.

Trump and many of his fellow Republicans have denounced the probe as a witch hunt and say any charges would be purely political in nature.

The Economist/YouGov poll was conducted from March 19 to 21 with a total of 1,500 respondents participating in the survey. The poll’s margin of error was 3.3 percentage points.