Most Republicans blame ‘left-wing protesters’ for Capitol riot: poll

Most Republicans blame the non-existent presence of “left-wing protesters” for the 6 January pro-Trump attack on the US Capitol, according to a new poll, while few think the former president, who spread election-related lies for months and helped incite the riot, is to blame.

Just 41 per cent of Republicans in a Yahoo News/YouGov poll conducted this week said Trump supporters bore responsibility for the attack, which sought to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s election win and “Stop the Steal”, while 73 per cent says “some” or a “great deal” of the blame rests with “left wing protesters trying to make Trump look bad”.

This finding in the 1588-person poll is striking because there’s no concrete evidence of any meaningful left-wing involvement behind the riot, according to the FBI as well as Republican minority leader Kevin McCarthy. But the claim, reported by the conservativeWashington Times newspaper and later championed by Trump-esque congressman Matt Gaetz, has proved a popular one, with similar results from an American Enterprise Institute poll in February.