Poll: Nearly 75% believe democracy under threat

In Quinnipiac survey, 52% say Trump should be removed from office

HARTFORD — Nearly 75% of American voters believe United States democracy is threatened, and more than half say that President Donald J. Trump should be removed from office, according to a new poll released Monday.

The latest national survey by Hamden-based Quinnipiac University says only 21% of registered voters believe American democracy is “alive and well.’’

The survey was taken after Wednesday’s attack on the U.S. Capitol by violent protesters who broke windows and fought fiercely with police before reaching both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives that are among the most prominent symbols of American democracy.

“When it comes to whether American democracy is under threat, both Republicans and Democrats see a raging five-alarm fire, but clearly disagree on who started it,” said Tim Malloy, a polling analyst at Quinnipiac.

In a deeply divided nation, voters remain split over the actions of Trump, who lost the presidential election in November to Democrat Joe Biden by 7 million votes. Among those surveyed, 56% said Trump is responsible for the rioters at the Capitol, but 42% said he is not responsible.

While 52% say he should be removed from office, 45% say he should not. On a separate question, 53% say he should resign, and 43% say he should not.

“A majority of Americans hold President Trump responsible for the chaos at the Capitol, and a slight majority believe that he should be removed from office,” said Malloy, a former television reporter who now analyzes the poll.

Biden had a similar position as those surveyed. When asked Monday by a reporter, Biden said, “I’ve been clear that President Trump should not be in office. Period.’’

Many voters, though, do not believe that Biden can unite the fractured country after he is sworn into office on January 20. While 31% believe the 78-year-old Biden can accomplish his often-stated goal of unifying the nation, another 56% say that the deep fractures between Republicans and Democrats will still remain after the new president takes office.

The key reason for the gathering in Washington last week was that some of Trump’s supporters believe that Trump actually won the election and that it was stolen by Democrats. They gathered in the nation’s capital to complain about voter fraud, but numerous officials have said that there was no widespread voter fraud that would have changed Biden’s margin of 7 million popular votes and his total of 306 votes in the Electoral College - the exact number that Trump reached in 2016 when he defeated Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But among Republicans surveyed by Quinnipiac, 73% said they believe there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. On the other hand, only 5% of Democrats and 36% of independents said there was widespread fraud.

Overall, 60% of those surveyed said that Trump is undermining democracy, while 34% said he is protecting it. In addition, 58% said that the Republicans in the House and Senate who attempted to derail the certification of the Electoral College votes that had declared Biden as the winner had undermined democracy.

An overwhelming 80% said that the rioters who stormed and entered the Capitol had undermined democracy, and only 10% say the violent protesters were protecting democracy.

The U.S. Capitol Police have come under blistering criticism from lawmakers and critics who say they were ill-prepared and had not established an adequate perimeter to keep the rioters away from the Capitol building.

More than 70% of those surveyed said the police did not do enough to prevent the riot, while 19% said they “did everything they could to prevent the initial storming’’ that eventually led to five deaths.

Trump’s job approval has now reached its lowest level, tying the numbers reached in August 2017. Only 33% approve of the job he is doing, while 60% do not. That represents a sharp change from December 2020 when 44% approved of the job he was doing.

While voters have been split on many of Trump’s policies, they are also split on whether he is mentally unstable. Overall, 45% said they believe that he stable mentally, while 48% do not.

Quinnipiac surveyed 1,239 adults nationwide who identified themselves as registered voters from Jan. 7-10 with a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points. The survey was taken by live interviewers through a random-digit dialing system that reaches those on both cellphones and landlines.