The Democratic Party may have wasted its time with the January 6 committee hearings as polling shows it has not helped Democrats ahead of the midterm elections.
Speaking with The Lead's Jake Tapper, CNN data analyst Harry Enten said Americans’ primary concern is inflation, even as a majority of Americans, 58 percent, are paying very or somewhat close attention to the hearings, according to a recent Quinnipiac University survey. While Democrats are more tuned in, with 74 percent following the hearings, 51 percent of Republicans say they are, too.
The “big question” Enten pointed out, is whether the hearings are changing anyone’s minds about whether former President Trump committed a crime to change the 20202 election results. Overall, nothing has changed since April 2022, according to the survey, when 46 percent said they believe he did. While the percentage of Democrats who believe Trump’s behavior was criminal fell by 2 percent, that’s still within the margin of error. Republicans, meanwhile, jumped from 6 percent in April to 15 percent.
Still, Enten wasn’t too interested in that leap.
“Among Republicans, there’s been perhaps a slight upward movement to 15%, but still clearly the vast majority of Republicans do not in fact believe that Trump committed a crime and these hearings don’t seem so far to in fact change opinions across all Americans of whether Trump committed a crime to change the 2020 election results,” he said.
Tapper then wondered if he felt the hearings changed how Democrats fare on a generic House ballot, which they’ve been performing “poorly” on.
“Not really, no,” Enten replied, adding that Americans aren’t rating the hearings among their top concerns.
“The top issue for Americans at this point is not the Jan. 6 committee hearings, it is not Donald Trump,” Enten said. “It’s inflation!”