A plurality of Americans think former President Donald Trump should have been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges related to his handling of classified documents, but a nearly equal number say the charges are politically motivated, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos. poll.
Trump deliberately withheld documents containing the nation’s most sensitive intelligence after he left office, displayed some of them on at least two occasions and then tried to obstruct the investigation into their whereabouts, prosecutors allege to the indictment. Trump has repeatedly denied any allegations of wrongdoing.
Nearly half — 48 percent — of Americans think Trump should have been indicted in the case, while 35 percent think he shouldn’t have been and 17 percent say they don’t know , according to the ABC News/Ipsos survey conducted using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel. .
Not surprisingly, an overwhelming majority (86%) of self-identified Democrats believe the former president should have been impeached. On the other hand, Republicans remain mostly loyal to Trump, with two in three (67%) saying the former president and current front-runner for the Republican nomination should not have been impeached. Independents are more divided, with 45% thinking he should have been charged, a third saying he shouldn’t have been, and 22% not knowing.
Overall, a solid majority of more than three in five Americans find the charges very (42%) or somewhat serious (19%), while only 28% of the public say it’s not too serious or not at all serious . One in ten say they don’t know. And party lines are expected to be polarized, with about nine in 10 Democrats saying the charges are very or somewhat serious, while half of Republicans say they are not too serious or not at all serious. A majority of independents (63%) find the charges very or somewhat serious, while 38% say they are not too serious or not at all serious.
The ABC News/Ipsos poll was in the field Friday and Saturday after Trump was indicted and as more details continued to emerge.
This is the second set of indictments for Trump, who also faces criminal charges in New York City related to a civil case in state court over alleged hush money payments to the movie actress for adult Stormy Daniels. And those numbers are strikingly similar to the surveys immediately following those charges, imputed by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Trump pleaded not guilty to those charges.
The latest indictment, unsealed Friday, alleges the classified documents included “defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.”
According to federal prosecutors, boxes of these documents were allegedly stored in various locations around Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, including a dance floor and a bathroom. Longtime Trump associate Walt Nauta, who worked in the White House before being hired as Trump’s personal assistant in 2021, was also indicted for allegedly conspiring with the former president to obstruct justice. An attorney for Nauta declined to comment when contacted by ABC News.
Trump will be tried on Tuesday in Miami.
After the charges in that second case were made public, Trump asserted his innocence in a video posted on his social media site.
“I’m innocent. We’re going to prove that very, very solidly and hopefully very quickly. Thank you very much,” he said.
His campaign sent a fuller statement denouncing the Justice Department and claiming the indictment was politically motivated.
“President Trump violated no laws and is held to a different legal standard than other former presidents and vice presidents,” the Trump campaign wrote.
And at least a plurality of Americans say they see politics behind the charges; in fact, 47% of the public believe the charges against Trump are politically motivated. Almost two in five (37%) say they are not, and 16% don’t know. A majority of Republicans (80 percent) align with that view, with only a fraction (9 percent) believing the charges were not based on politics. About one in 10 Republicans aren’t sure. But the lion’s share of Democrats (71%) believe the charges are not politically motivated, while 16% say they were politically motivated and 13% are undecided.
Trump’s political rivals have had mixed reactions to the news, with his former vice president, Mike Pence, saying that while no one was above the law, he found the accusation “disturbing.”
“The American people deserve to know the reasons for this unprecedented action, and we also need to hear the former president’s defense. Then each of us can make our own judgment about whether this is the latest example of ‘a Department of Justice doing injustice, or else,’ Pence said at a campaign stop in North Carolina.
Other rivals, such as former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, are calling for the former president to suspend his campaign.
“This is a sad day for our country. While Donald Trump is entitled to the presumption of innocence, the ongoing criminal proceedings will be a major distraction. This reaffirms the need for Donald Trump to stand in office and end his campaign.” , has said. in a statement to ABC News.
This division of thought is also reflected in Americans. A plurality of the public (46%) say Trump should suspend his bid for the White House, while 38% say he shouldn’t, and 16% don’t know.
As they pursue the Republican presidential nomination, candidates like Hutchinson and Pence, who are self-proclaimed constitutional conservatives, hope to make inroads with evangelical or born-again Republicans, a group that comprises 42 percent of self-identified Republicans. This ABC News/Ipsos poll finds that Republicans who identify as evangelical or born-again are actually numerically more favorable (69%) to Trump than Republicans who do not identify as evangelical or who they have been born again (61%) and there is practically no difference in attitudes towards the charges between the different subgroups that make up the republican identifiers.
While President Joe Biden’s approval rating sits at 31%, Trump’s approval rating has improved since his first impeachment, from 25% then to 31% now.
According to recent polls, Trump has a comfortable lead in the race for the 2024 Republican nomination.
METHODOLOGY: This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted using the Ipsos Public Affairs® KnowledgePanel® June 9-10, 2023, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 910 US adults with a oversample of Republican respondents weighted according to their correct proportion in the general population. The results have a margin of sampling error of 3.7 points, including the design effect. Party splits are 26-25-41 percent, Democrats-Republicans-Independents. See survey results and details on methodology here.
ABC News’ Katherine Faulders, Ken Goldstein, Aaron Katersky, Dan Merkle and John Santucci contributed to this report.
