Most see fragile democracy, poll finds

WASHINGTON — One year after the storming of the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump, 6 out of 10 people in the United States believe that the country’s democracy is in danger of collapse, according to a poll released on Wednesday.

Seventy-six percent of those surveyed in the poll by Quinnipiac University said they think political instability in the US is a bigger danger than foreign threats.

A majority of those polled — 58 percent — said they think the nation’s democracy is in danger of collapse. Meanwhile, 53 percent said they expect political divisions in the country to worsen over their lifetime.

As for the likelihood of another attack in the US like the one on Congress, 53 percent said it was very or somewhat likely.

A special committee of the House of Representatives is investigating last January’s storming of the Capitol, with 61 percent of those surveyed saying that they back the probe. A total of 83 percent of Democrats favor it, while 60 percent of Republicans oppose it.

The poll also had bad news for President Joe Biden, with just 33 percent of those surveyed saying they approved of the job he was doing.

Fifty-three percent said they disapproved, while 13 percent had no opinion.

Biden had a 38 percent job approval rating in a Quinnipiac poll in November.

The nationwide poll of 1,313 adults was conducted between Jan 7 and 10 and has a margin of error of +/- 2.7 percentage points, Quinnipiac said.

According to an NPR/Ipsos poll published on Jan 3, over 60 percent of people in the US are deeply pessimistic about the future of democracy one year after the Jan 6 attack on the Capitol.

The poll found that 64 percent of people in the US believe that US democracy is “in crisis and at risk of failing”.

That sentiment is felt most acutely by Republicans: two-thirds of GOP respondents agree with the verifiably false claim that “voter fraud helped Joe Biden win the 2020 election”, a key pillar of the “Big Lie” that the election was stolen from former president Donald Trump.

Nearly two-thirds of poll respondents agree that US democracy is “more at risk” now than it was a year ago. Among Republicans, that number climbs to 4 in 5. Overall, 70 percent of poll respondents agree that the country is in crisis and at risk of failing.