POLL: Voters Believe Trump Will Pardon January 6 Defendants

I have been quite critical of Trump announcing so early that he wanted to pardon the January 6 defendants.  

If I had been advising Trump on this, I would have told him to skirt the issue, then make his pardons on the way out the door so as not to hurt the party in the 2026 and 2028 elections.  

Based on polling, it would appear that I am wrong.  

They Know 

It would appear that the majority of people who voted for Trump did so assuming that he would be offering mass pardons to January 6 defendants.  

A poll that was just released by Politico/Morning Consult suggested that 69% of voters believed that Trump was “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to pardon January 6 defendants. 

Nine percent believed it was “somewhat unlikely,” and six percent believed it was “very unlikely.” 

Repeatedly during the campaign, Trump had stated that his administration would “rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner unjustly victimized by the Harris regime, and I will sign their pardons on Day 1.” 

During one rally, Trump added, “Those J6 warriors — they were warriors — but they were really, more than anything else, they’re victims of what happened.” 

Trump claimed that all they were doing was protesting a “rigged” election.  

My take on that is a bit different, but I still hope that Trump is very careful in how he reviews these cases and that he does not open himself up to impeachment by pardoning the wrong people.  

The concern here is that if Trump offers pardons to anyone convicted of sedition charges, it would be interpreted as lending aid and comfort to an insurrectionist by Democrats and his Republican enemies.  

If Democrats were to get control back of Congress, it would take them about five seconds to file impeachment papers against Trump on this basis. 

Trump is going to have to leave those people in jail, and I would also recommend that anyone who injured police officers be left to serve their sentence.  

If he pardons the rest, I believe the damage will be minimal and the narrative will be long gone by the time people head back to the voting booth.