Two-thirds of Americans (65%) say that the charges former President Donald Trump faces over efforts to overturn the 2020 elections are serious, according to a new poll from ABC News and Ipsos conducted after Trump’s latest indictment.
That’s a larger share than felt that way about either the charges he faces over alleged mishandling of classified documents (61%) or the charges related to a hush money payment that he faces in New York (52%). Most (51%) describe the new charges as “very serious,” compared with 42% who said so on the documents charges and 30% on the hush money case.
A majority in the new poll say Trump should have been charged with a crime in this case (52% vs. 32% who say he should not have been charged) and about half say he ought to suspend his presidential campaign because of it (49% say so vs. 36% who say he should not and 15% who say they don’t know).
A sizable share describe the new charges as politically motivated (46%) while 40% feel they are not politically motivated.
There are broad partisan gaps in views of the seriousness of the new charges, with 91% of Democrats calling them serious along with 67% of independents, though just 38% of Republicans agree. The gap between Democrats and Republicans widens to 65 points when looking at those who call the charges “very serious” (84% of Democrats feel that way vs. 19% of Republicans; 53% of independents say the same).
The survey also shows that both Trump and President Joe Biden face negative favorability ratings (30% hold a favorable view of Trump, 33% for Biden).
Asked about how the US Justice Department is handling its investigation into Hunter Biden, 35% said they have at least some confidence it is being handled in a fair and nonpartisan manner, 46% said they were not confident in that and 19% said they did not know.
The poll also shows that 39% of Americans believe the US House of Representatives should start an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden over Hunter Biden’s business deals, a view driven largely by Republicans (74% of Republicans say the House should start an impeachment inquiry on this matter vs. 35% of independents and just 11% of Democrats).
More about the poll: The ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted online August 2-3 among a random national sample of 1,076 adults. The results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
