Four years after Jan. 6 Capitol riot, polls show some attitudes softening

Congress on Monday certified President-elect Donald Trump’s November victory as part of the peaceful transfer of power that has marked every U.S. presidential election – except one.

Four years ago, Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol, trying to stop the tally of electoral votes that would make Joe Biden’s victory official.

Lawmakers evacuated. Five people died during or after the riot. Attackers armed with pipes, bats, bear spray, and other weapons injured about 140 or more law enforcement officers, many of whom were left “beaten, bloodied and bruised,” according to The Associated Press. Mr. Trump was federally charged with trying to overturn the election results, and more than 1,500 people have been charged with offenses ranging from disorderly conduct to assault, according to an NPR database. More than 500 have been sentenced to periods of incarceration.

“We nearly lost America” on Jan. 6, 2021, is how President Biden has described that day.

Public opinion surveys suggest that as time passes, fewer Americans agree with that sentiment.

In a Washington Post/University of Maryland poll from December 2021, more than half of respondents said legal punishments for rioters were “not harsh enough.” Two years later, in the same survey, that number fell to 38% – and more than 1 in 4 said the punishments were “too harsh.” Those who answered the survey also had softened on Mr. Trump’s actions – from 43% saying he bore “a great deal” of responsibility to 37%, and from 24% saying he bore no responsibility at all to 28%.

Mike Hanmer, director of the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement at the University of Maryland, says he thinks Republicans have been gaining in the influence game in terms of the way Jan. 6 is perceived – specifically, Mr. Trump’s message that it’s he and his supporters who are under attack.

“It fits with the narrative that people in power aren’t looking out for us,” Dr. Hanmer says. “Evidence suggests that resonated.”

Republican strategist Sam Chen, based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, says that for Democrats, Jan. 6 messaging “hasn’t played politically all that well.”

He sees something else at work, too.

“The further we move away from a major event, the less impactful that event becomes and the more gracious we become, rightly or wrongly, to the people involved,” Mr. Chen says. “We get more and more forgiving as time goes on. I think that’s what we’re seeing.”

One thing that has not changed: There is no evidence supporting Mr. Trump’s claims that fraud stole the 2020 election from him, according to sources that range from court rulings to a Trump voter-data analyst and independent fact-checks.

President-elect Trump says that he will issue pardons for Jan. 6 offenses and has called those charged and convicted with the Jan. 6 insurrection government “hostages.”

If the polling shows people softening in some ways toward the defendants, they’re not in lockstep with Mr. Trump. A Public Religion Research Institute poll in September 2024 showed more than half of respondents said they “completely disagree” that those convicted are hostages. And in a December 2024 Post/UMD poll, which did not ask the same Jan. 6 questions as the 2021 and 2023 surveys, two-thirds of respondents said they don’t support the idea of pardons.

Views are split sharply along partisan lines – 90% of Democrats oppose pardons, compared with 40% of Republicans. Two-thirds of independent voters oppose pardons.

Dr. Hanmer detects a shift for Republicans there. In the 2023 survey, 54% said the legal punishments were fair or not harsh enough. But in last month’s survey, almost 2 out of 3 Republicans supported pardons.

“There’s no direct line from earlier surveys where you would make that prediction” of current attitudes about pardons, Dr. Hanmer says.

Last month’s Post/UMD poll also asked respondents to peer into the future: Will Mr. Trump leave office at the end of his term, as the U.S. Constitution mandates, or will he try for a third term? Almost half – 48% – said they thought he’d try to stay on. Almost 3 in 4 Republicans think he’ll step down; nearly the same percentage of Democrats think he won’t.

Charlie Gerow is a Republican strategist in Pennsylvania who joined 19 others to sign a document supporting then-President Trump’s bid to overturn the election results – an effort that resulted in criminal charges for “fake electors” in four other states. He says it’s nonsense to think Mr. Trump will try to stay past his second term. If he wanted to “surround the White House with tanks,” Mr. Gerow says, “he’d have done that four years ago.”

Mr. Chen says he hears many voters express concern that the president-elect will try to remain president beyond two terms. It doesn’t help that Mr. Trump has at least joked about it, he says.

“I also think it’s very telling just how divided the country is and just how many people believe the rule of law is completely shattered. That’s not a good sign for democracy,” he says.

Editor's note: This article was updated on Jan. 6, 2025, the date of its original publication, to reflect that Congress has certified the 2024 presidential election results.