Public opinion analyst Karlyn Bowman said in an interview that aired Thursday on “What America’s Thinking” that partisanship is strikingly noticeable in most polls about the federal probe into Russian election meddling.
Bowman, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, was referring to a new American Barometer survey, conducted by Hill.TV and the HarrisX polling company, which found that 57 percent of Americans said special counsel Robert Mueller should pursue criminal activity in the Russia investigation.
“The partisanship on these questions, not only in your poll but in many others is extraordinary,” Bowman told Hill.TV’s Joe Concha on Wednesday.
“It’s there and you can see Trump’s base in the other side of that question overall, but Democrats and Republicans do have different views of the question overall,” she continued.
“We’re talking about criminal activity, that’s the question was worded, so it’s not surprising to me that a broad swath of Americans want to see investigations of criminal activity,” she said.
The poll also found that 80 percent of Democrats said Mueller should pursue any potential criminal activity that it uncovers by Trump associates, including tax evasion and campaign finance violations, even if they are unrelated to the 2016 campaign.
Seventy percent of Republicans said the special counsel should only pursue activity related to collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials during the 2016 election.
The poll comes after Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for pleading guilty to bank and tax fraud, lying to Congress and violating campaign finance laws.
Cohen is cooperating in Mueller’s probe.
— Julia Manchester
hilltv copyright
