The percentage of Republicans who call the January 6, 2021, protests an “insurrection" has increased from 10% to 12% since December 2021, Axios reports citing a new NPR/PBS NewsHour Marist poll. The increase is smaller than the poll’s margin of error and comes despite months of high-profile hearings by the January 6 House Committee.
In comparison, 86% of Democrats and 52% of independents consider the Capitol breach "a threat to democracy."
Meanwhile, only 44% of GOP voters are paying attention to the congressional investigation, while 80% of Democrats and 55% of independents follow the hearings.
When it comes to Donald Trump, 87% of Republicans say that the former president should not be charged with crimes. Less than one-in-five Republicans believe that he "deserves a great or good deal of blame" for what happened on that infamous day in DC.
Trump remains steadily popular among Republicans (83%) and "garners the likeability of about one in three independents (33%)," according to the survey. In general, 38% of US citizens have a favorable opinion of the ex-president, which is comparable to the 39% he scored in April.
For its part, Axios wonders why Republicans remain unmoved by "revealing" testimonies and "new evidence" regularly unveiled during the January 6 panel's hearings.
One of the possible reasons is that the hearings “have failed to punch through as a voting issue," according to the pollster.
"Inflation (37%) is the number-one issue for registered voters as they think about November’s midterm elections," the report explains. "Abortion (18%), guns (10%), and health care (10%) follow. The January 6th Committee Hearings (9%), crime (6%), and immigration (6%) receive single digits."
Fifty-seven percent of Republicans and 42% of independents have signaled that inflation is the top concern for them, with just 12% of Democrats sharing this stance. Even for the Dems, the January 6 hearings are not the number one issue (17%), as they are much more concerned (29%) with the reversal of the Roe v. Wade abortion law.
Yet another probable reason for GOP voters being uninterested in the panel's investigation is that the Republican leadership criticized the Democratic-dominated initiative from the outset.
Only two GOP lawmakers known for their criticism against Trump and the MAGA movement joined the committee's board, which prompted conservative observers to say that the panel is not really "bipartisan."
“It’s a joke," said Wisconsin Republican Kathleen Silbernagel, quoted by the Guardian. "Most conservatives feel that it is a kangaroo court. Liberals already hate him so it’s not going to affect them. But how it will affect independent people, who are always in the middle, is hard to tell."
The January 6 Committee has held a series of hearings striving to establish a criminal case against Donald Trump. During Thursday’s eighth hearing, the seven Democratic and two Republican lawmakers examined the ex-president’s inaction during the Capitol attack, with Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) assuming that Trump "certainly has criminal exposure." Kinzinger added, however, that he couldn’t speak from a prosecutorial perspective.
However, Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University, questioned this perspective. "A president’s failure to ‘do the right thing,’ – and that’s a direct quote from the committee – is a political rather than criminal judgment," Turley was quoted as saying by Christian Science Monitor.
"The committee has contributed a great deal in making details and accounts public," he continued. "These are very disturbing and at times breathtaking accounts. The evidence ranges from the horrific to the heroic."
However, "looking objectively at the evidence, the committee never supplied 'credible' proof of crimes," Turley argued. Furthermore, it's still unclear what exact crime or crimes the panel is trying to charge Trump with.
"Attorney General Merrick Garland clearly is looking for evidence of criminal conduct and could seek an indictment," the lawyer wrote in an op-ed for the Hill on July 19. "If based on the committee’s evidence, however, it is a criminal case that would be ripe for reversal even if a conviction could be secured from a favorable District of Columbia jury."
Meanwhile, the House Select Committee has made it clear that it will continue to investigate the former president until January 2023, when the Republicans may take over the lower chamber and start their own investigation, this time into Joe Biden.