The majority of Americans say President Donald Trump isn't doing enough to protect U.S. elections from outside meddling, a new poll has found.
Some six in 10 Americans said they were not at all or not too confident that Trump is taking the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election seriously enough, or taking steps to prevent a similar foreign influence campaign on future elections, according to a CNN/SSRS poll published on Tuesday. Just 37 percent of respondents said they were very or somewhat confident that Trump was doing enough to protect upcoming elections.
Democrats were significantly more concerned with foreign meddling efforts than Republicans and independents. Nine out of 10 Democrats said they were worried about election interference, while 68 percent of independents and 53 percent of Republican respondents said the same, the poll found.
Pollsters interviewed 1,016 adults between February 20 to February 23—just days after special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign, announced the indictment of 13 Russian nationals for interfering with the election. The indictments alleged the Russians spread false information via social media and communicated with "unwitting" Trump campaign aides.
The majority of respondents, 55 percent, also said they think Trump has tried to interfere with the Russia investigation. Only 30 percent said they approve of how Trump has handled the investigation.
Those polled were largely split along partisan lines over whether the Russian contact with members of the Trump campaign is alarming. Sixty-six percent of all respondents said they were concerned about the communications, with 91 percent of Democrats saying so—compared with 36 percent of Republicans, according to the poll.
Respondents were also skeptical about whether Congress, Google or major social media platforms were doing enough to prevent another foreign-influence campaign on U.S. elections. Only 37 percent said they trusted Congress to take care of it while just 32 percent said the same for Google, Facebook and Twitter.
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Ryan Sit is a Breaking News reporter at Newsweek. He previously covered crime and law enforcement at the New York ... Read more
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