Most voters not closely tracking arguments in Chauvin trial: poll

A new Morning Consult poll finds that although overall interest in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is accused of murdering George Floyd, is high, the majority of U.S. voters say they are not closely monitoring the trial.

In the poll released Tuesday, 44 percent of respondents said they had seen, read or heard “a lot” about Chauvin’s trial. The remaining 56 percent said they had picked up some, not much or nothing at all about the trial.

“Among the 56 percent not who are not glued to the trial, the overall public is most likely to cite two things: a lack of interest or emotional pain regarding the events of Floyd’s death on May 25. The reasons voters are most likely to give for not paying attention fall strongly along partisan lines,” Morning Consult said.

A quarter of self-identified liberals said they are not following the trial closely because “it’s traumatizing,” and 34 percent said it is “emotionally upsetting.” Fewer than 15 percent of conservatives responded similarly for both reasons for not paying attention to the trial.

Among conservatives, 43 percent said they are “not interested” in the trial, compared with 15 percent of liberals who said the same.

“Roughly 1 in 10 Republicans, Democrats, Black voters and members of the overall electorate said they weren’t tracking the trial because they don’t know much about it, are personally busy or don’t expect Chauvin to be convicted,” Morning Consult added.

The survey of 1,989 registered voter was conducted from April 2 to April 4. The results have a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

Testimony in Chauvin’s murder trial continues with more witnesses this week. On Monday, Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo testified that Chauvin did not use defense tactics that were taught by his police department when he knelt on Floyd’s neck for several minutes during an arrest.