Dem Group: Voters In The End Did Not Really Care That Trump Instigated Jan. 6 Attack

WASHINGTON ― Donald Trump instigated a violent attack on the Capitol, was impeached for it by the House, was criminally indicted for it, but in the end was given a pass for it by key voters in the seven swing states, new polling confirms, because they were more concerned about inflation and other pocketbook issues.

“It’s clear that voters were thinking about their economic situation,” said Nick Ahamed from Priorities USA, a Democratic-aligned group that on Thursday released a post-election survey to quantify why Vice President Kamala Harris lost to a man who attempted a coup to remain in power the last time he held the White House.

Ahamed said voters were not necessarily making a conscious tradeoff between democracy and lower living costs. It’s more that they largely did not believe that Trump represents a continued threat to democracy, despite his history.

Even worse for Harris’ campaign, the voters she most needed to hang on to, those who flipped from Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020 to Trump in 2024, were even less likely to see Trump as a danger to the republic than the average voter.

Only 24% of voters in Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina believe that Trump is “very likely” to overturn the Constitution to remain in power ― which is still higher than the 18% of Biden-to-Trump voters who believe that. And while just 29% of voters thought it’s very likely that Trump would try to use the U.S. military to go after his political opponents and critics, among Biden-to-Trump voters that figure is just 24%.

While both the Harris campaign and outside groups helping her focused on economic issues, the limited attempt to warn voters about Trump’s autocratic tendencies failed, Ahamed acknowledged.

“We didn’t connect Trump’s authoritarian behavior and what it would mean for them in the next year and in the next four years,” he said.

A more basic problem Democratic campaign operatives had, Ahamed added, is the assumption that most Americans saw Trump the same way they did.

“Themes like ‘stronger together,’ ‘restore the soul of the nation,’ ‘we’re not going back,’ all are predicated on a hatred of Donald Trump that voters … and the voters specifically that we lost, don’t necessarily feel,” he said.

Polling, for example, showed Trump’s continued success at pushing the image that made him famous: his portrayal of a genius billionaire businessman on the television game show “The Apprentice.”

Among Black men between 18 and 44, a full 38% like Trump because he “tells it like it is,” even though the former president has been a notorious liar his entire adult life, while 35% believe he is a “successful businessman and entrepreneur,” even though he inherited his wealth, and his business record includes bankrupting casinos.

The poll also had warnings for Democrats about opposing “cultural heroes” of those voters they need to win over to win elections.

Billionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk, for instance, is liked and disliked about equally among all voters. Among those who voted for Biden in 2020 but for Trump in 2024, he is seen favorably by 64% and unfavorably by only 20%.

Democracy advocates, including anti-Trump Republicans, warned months ahead of the election that Jan. 6 was not likely to work as a campaign issue in 2024 because Trump successfully made his lie that the 2020 election had been stolen from him, and his follow-up claim that those arrested for their participation in the Capitol attack were “political prisoners” and “hostages” that deserved pardons, articles of faith within the Republican Party.

While public opinion in the days and weeks after Jan. 6 ran overwhelmingly against the attack and Trump, those numbers began to shift over the months as Trump and pro-Trump media pushed conspiracy theories about the election as well as the violence on that day.

The need to avoid alienating Trump’s hard-core supporters, in fact, in February 2021 led to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and most Republicans refusing to convict Trump on his impeachment, which would have led to his prohibition from holding federal office again.

“Ultimately this comes down to Mitch McConnell,” Ahamed said.