A slight majority of respondents in a new poll said former President Trump broke the law in Georgia in his alleged attempts to interfere in the state’s vote count during the 2020 election.
The survey, published Wednesday from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, discovered that 51 percent of adults surveyed think Trump’s efforts to overturn the election in Georgia were illegal — with 13 percent saying it was unethical, but not illegal. Additionally, 15 percent said he did nothing wrong, whereas 20 percent said they did not know enough about the case to make a choice.
The poll was conducted just before Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis (D) unveiled charges related to racketeering and election interference in Georgia late Monday against Trump and 18 others. This was the former president’s fourth indictment this year.
When broken down by political affiliation, an overwhelming majority of Democrats said what Trump did in Georgia was illegal, with 5 percent saying it was just unethical and only 2 percent saying he did nothing wrong. On the other side of the aisle, 16 percent of Republicans said what Trump did was illegal, with another 26 percent saying it was just unethical and 31 percent saying he did nothing wrong.
The poll also surveyed respondents on Trump’s actions associated with his other ongoing legal battles. In one federal indictment, 53 percent of respondents said it was illegal for Trump to store classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home after leaving the White House, including 85 percent of Democrats and 18 percent of Republicans.
Overall, 47 percent said Trump’s role in what happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was illegal — including 80 percent of Democrats and just 15 percent of Republicans.
When asked about allegations that he covered up hush money payments to a woman to cover up an alleged affair, 34 percent of respondents said that it was illegal, including 55 percent of Democrats and 12 percent of Republicans.
The poll also found that 54 percent of the public thought that Trump’s actions taken after the 2020 election did “more to threaten democracy than defend it.”
The poll was conducted Aug. 10-14 among 1,165 adults and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.