Less Than a Quarter of Americans Think Trump Should Fire Mueller or Pardon Senior Officials

For Immediate Release

June 27, 2018

Lauren Strayer
media@voterstudygroup.org
(202) 420-7928

Jack D’Amato
media@voterstudygroup.org
(404) 995-4500

Less Than a Quarter of Americans Think Trump Should Fire Mueller or Pardon Senior Officials Despite Deeply Polarized Perceptions of the Russia Investigation

New Polling from the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group Shows that Most Republicans Doubt the Fairness of the Mueller Investigation, But Still Tend to Believe that the Charges Being Investigated are Serious.

Washington, D.C. – June 27, 2018

A new report from the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group shows strong support for the special counsel, Robert Mueller, and a consensus that the allegations against Russia and the Trump campaign would be serious if proven true. However, a significant gap exists between Republican and Democratic voter attitudes toward Mueller and the investigation.

The Voter Study Group is a research collaboration of leading analysts and scholars from across the political spectrum. The new report, “Jumping to Collusions: Americans React to Russia and the Mueller Investigation,” by Joe Goldman (Democracy Fund) and Robert Griffin (Public Religion Research Institute), analyzed new data from a May 2018 survey of more than 4,700 Americans about their attitudes toward the Mueller investigation.

Key findings from “Jumping to Collusions” include:

• About two in 10 Americans think it would be appropriate for Trump to fire Mueller, while six in 10 say it would not. In addition, most Americans believe that it would not be appropriate for the President to pardon senior members of his administration over the investigation. Even among those Americans who are “not too confident” in the fairness of the Mueller investigation, 58 percent say removing Mueller would be inappropriate. It is only among those who are “not at all confident” in the investigation that support for removing Mueller emerges (58 percent).

• While skeptical about the integrity of the investigation, a majority of Trump voters (51 percent) say that the charge of obstructing the Mueller investigation is serious, if true. Similar percentages of Trump voters say that the charges of seeking or accepting Russian assistance are serious.

• Ninety percent of Clinton voters believe that improper contact with Russia probably occurred while 82 percent of Trump voters say it probably did not. Similar levels of polarization can be found in perceptions of the F.B.I. and Justice Department, along with the integrity of the investigation itself.

• Among Republicans, Kasich and Rubio voters are the most supportive of the investigation and most skeptical of presidential intervention in the investigation. More than one-third of Kasich voters (37 percent) and one in six Rubio voters (16 percent) think that the Trump campaign “definitely” or “probably” had inappropriate contact with Russia.

• Republicans who consume a lot of news are more likely to be supportive of the Trump administration and skeptical of the investigation. Compared to those who follow the news “some of the time” or less, Republicans who follow the news “most of the time” are more likely to say that the Trump campaign did not have improper contact with Russia (88 percent vs. 63 percent) and that they are “not confident” in the fairness of the Russia investigation (80 percent vs. 49 percent).

“While it is encouraging that more Americans are confident the investigation is fair, the deep partisan divides on this issue raise red flags,” said Rob Griffin, associate director of Research at the Public Religion Research Institute. “It’s also troubling that Republican voters who are more likely to follow the news are actually less supportive of the investigation, indicating that the current media environment is doing more to polarize Americans than unite us around a common set of facts.”

“Most Americans believe that the President is not above the law and should not interfere with the investigation,” said Joe Goldman, president of Democracy Fund and co-founder of the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group. “It’s only when people lose all faith in the fairness of the investigation that a willingness to support pardoning senior administration officials emerges. Leaders from both parties need to take steps to ensure that the American people are able to believe in the integrity of this investigation and our system of justice.”

The full report can be found at www.voterstudygroup.org, along with other research from the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group.