Half of Americans express concern that President Trump or members of his campaign had inappropriate contact with members of the Russian government and 6 in 10 believe that Trump attempted to obstruct the investigation into these possible contacts, according to a new survey by The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
The survey confirms that the public views most issues surrounding the Russia investigation through a partisan lens. Democrats express significantly more worry about the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia and nearly 9 in 10 say Trump attempted to impede or obstruct the investigation compared with just 1 in 4 Republicans who say the same.
Democrats and Republicans do express similar levels of skepticism when it comes to the Justice Department’s ability to conduct a fair investigation. Few in both parties express confidence that the Justice Department’s investigation of Trump’s possible ties to Russia led by former FBI Director Robert Mueller will be fair and impartial.
The nationwide poll was conducted June 8-11, 2017 using the AmeriSpeak® Panel, the probability-based panel of NORC at the University of Chicago. Online and telephone interviews using landlines and cell phones were conducted with 1,068 adults. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
