Americans appear to be warming to the idea that former president Donald Trump has broken the law and are less willing to dismiss his actions as merely being unethical.
On both issues, more Americans say Trump broke the law — 45 percent and 44 percent, respectively — than ever said so during the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, the scandal involving Trump’s interaction with the Ukrainian president and other instances in which the question was asked, according to a Washington Post review of polling during Trump’s tenure.
After a presidency marked by Trump repeatedly escaping consequences after controversy and now retaining a fighting chance to win the next election, the data suggests that Trump may find it more difficult to move past these new issues.
At the same time, the political middle remains somewhat mixed in its views on whether Trump’s actions in these instances were illegal or merely unethical. And the polls suggest Trump’s devoted base, which regards him as blameless, continues to constitute as many as 3 in 10 Americans.
A new Marist College poll for PBS and NPR released Wednesday showed 44 percent of Americans say Trump’s storage of sensitive government documents at Mar-a-Lago was illegal, while another 17 percent say it was unethical but not illegal.
That follows on a July CNN poll in which 45 percent said Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election were illegal, and 34 percent said they were unethical.
Never before has a poll that offered people three options — including a middle-ground “unethical” option — found this many Americans saying Trump’s actions were illegal.
According to The Post’s review, the previous highs came during the Ukraine impeachment, when an Associated Press-NORC poll showed 42 percent said Trump acted illegally, and the Russia investigation, when the number saying Trump broke the law peaked at 40 percent.
Below are many of the polls that have tested this question, along with which controversy they polled and when.
Notably, the percentage of Americans who regarded Trump’s actions as either illegal or unethical also peaked in the July CNN poll, with about 8 in 10 picking one of those options. The previous highs came in the early stages of the Russia investigation in February 2018, and later that year after Trump’s alleged hush-money payments to women who accused him of affairs were driving the news. (The numbers then also approached 8 in 10.)
The most recent poll, on the Mar-a-Lago documents, includes significantly fewer choosing the “unethical” option, but it still adds up to a combined 6 in 10 regarding Trump’s actions as either illegal or unethical. (This latter poll shows more respondents saying Trump did nothing wrong — 29 percent — but also significantly more undecideds.)
Previous controversies also carry some lessons about where public perception might go from here.
This question on Trump’s actions vis-a-vis Russia was polled frequently, and it took some time for the perception that Trump broke the law to set in. Shortly after he was elected in 2016, about 1 in 5 thought he had acted illegally, with that number rising as high as 40 percent late that year. Later polling ebbed and flowed somewhat, depending upon the latest developments and which pollster was asking the question.
The hush money scandal also took some time to build, given the gradual revelations. The peak of 38 percent saying Trump broke the law (and nearly 8 in 10 saying he at least acted unethically) came in December 2018, shortly after federal prosecutors linked Trump more directly to the scheme and former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was sentenced to prison for his role.
Similarly, the investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection has been building for some time. But the reaction to the attack on the Capitol also appeared to be instantaneous. We don’t have multiple polls asking this particular question to compare, but posing a binary question soon after the event — did Trump break the law, or didn’t he? — showed that, for the first time in his political career, a majority said he had.
The next month, that number dropped off. But the most recent poll suggests this continues to be a major concern for many Americans, 20 months later.
The question for Trump now is whether his documents controversy more closely resembles the Jan. 6 issue or these other controversies. Obviously, much will depend upon what we learn from here. The unprecedented presidential search was shocking in the moment — albeit in a less pronounced way than the Jan. 6 insurrection — but the investigation is complicated, and much remains to be learned.
What’s evident, though, is that compared to almost his entire tenure in office, it’s now becoming less of a leap for people to believe Trump broke the law. And while most Americans still aren’t convinced he did — and Trump retains the loyalty of much of the GOP — these numbers are not exactly conducive to regaining the presidency in 2024.
