A strong majority of voters believe President Trump has committed crimes before he became president and a plurality believe he’s committed crimes since his inauguration, according to a new survey from a reputable national pollster.
Quinnipiac University’s latest poll finds that a whopping 64 percent of American voters believe that Trump committed crimes before he became president, with just 24 percent saying he didn’t. That includes one third of Republicans.
Those numbers are even higher than Trump’s disapproval rating in the poll. Fully 55 percent of voters disapprove of Trump’s job performance while only 38 percent approve, according to the poll. That’s virtually unchanged since Quinnipiac’s last survey in late January.
A narrow plurality of those surveyed also believe Trump has committed crimes since he became president: 45 percent say he has, 43 percent say he hasn’t. Just 30 percent of poll respondents say Trump is honest, his lowest score of his tenure in office in Quinnipiac’s surveys, with 65 percent of voters saying he’s not honest.
These numbers are bleak for the president — but don’t spell total doom. A strong majority of voters in the poll also say Congress shouldn’t begin impeachment proceedings against Trump: 59 percent say it shouldn’t, to 35 percent who say it should. But voters believe Michael Cohen over Trump by a 15-point margin in the poll, and by 58 percent to 35 percent voters say Congress should further investigate Cohen’s claims about Trump.
Quinnipiac’s numbers have also regularly been a bit worse for Trump than some other national polls, though not wildly different. While Trump is underwater by 17 points in this survey, most other recent reputable surveys have Trump’s net disapproval in the high single digits or low double digits. That suggests that even if these numbers are a bit too harsh for Trump overall, a majority of voters still believe Trump has committed crimes.
The live-caller poll of 1,120 registered voters was conducted from March 1-4 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percent.
