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Majorities think Obama spied on Trump and want a special counsel

Investor's Business Daily

Americans overwhelmingly believe the Obama administration "improperly surveilled" Donald Trump's presidential campaign, and a majority say they would like to see a special prosecutor appointed to look into possible misconduct by the FBI and Department of Justice in spying on Trump, the latest IBD/TIPP poll shows.
Some 55% of those said it was "likely" that the Obama administration "improperly surveilled the Trump campaign during the 2016 election." There was an obvious partisan split among the responses, with 87% of Republicans and 55% of independents saying the improper spying took place, but only 31% of Democrats.

On the question of whether a special counsel was needed to "investigate whether the FBI and the Department of Justice improperly surveilled the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election," 54% responded "yes," and 44% "no." Again, 74% of Republicans and 50% of independents wanted a special counsel appointed. But even 44% of Democrats thought it would be a good idea.

They took their responses only from those who claimed they were following the story "very closely" or "somewhat closely". That doesn't invalidate their numbers, particularly the Democrat numbers, but does mean the results aren't necessarily predictive of election results.

Check below the fold for a poll with a more general audience.

Rasmussen

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 42% of Likely U.S. Voters believe Russia is more likely than the FBI to have meddled in the 2016 presidential race. But 34% now think the FBI is more likely to have meddled in the election, while one-in-four voters (24%) are not sure which was the bigger meddler.

Rasmussen headlines it as 42% think Russia meddled more in the election than the FBI, but that's misleading. Why? Well, first off, let's present the rest of the story:

Rasmussen

Seventy-two percent (72%) of liberals and a plurality (48%) of moderates think Russia is likely to have meddled more. But 55% of conservative voters believe the FBI was the bigger meddler of the two. [...] Forty-eight percent (48%) of all voters said in December that senior federal law enforcement officials broke the law in an effort to prevent Trump from winning the 2016 election. Forty-one percent (41%) disagreed... most voters (53%) still disagreed with the FBI's decision not to seek an indictment of the Democratic presidential nominee for her sloppy handling of classified information...

So what's the big picture here? Most people seem to think that both the FBI and Russia meddled, but Russia meddled "more". That doesn't exactly exonerate the FBI, and a clear majority think the FBI improperly cleared Hillary even if they don't characterize it as election meddling. And there's a large pool of undecideds who remain to be convinced. Of those people following the issue closely, a clear majority thought the FBI had improperly spied on the Trump campaign. That suggests that if those undecideds learn more about the issue in the lead-up to the midterms, they will be convinced. Some portion of those convinced will likely switch their vote, even though Obama and Hillary are not on the ballot.

But that doesn't mean the Republicans will win the upcoming 2018 midterms. Because, to borrow a phrase, the media is all about deciding what the public shouldn't know about because it would hurt Democrats.

This entry was published Tue Feb 13 09:59:46 CST 2018 by TriggerFinger and last updated 2018-02-13 09:59:46.0. [Tweet]

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