Document issue bad for both Trump and Biden but American public views Trump as more serious concern

Washington, DC, January 22, 2023 - A new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds that large majorities of Americans believe that both Donald Trump (77%) and Joe Biden (64%) acted inappropriately in how they handled classified documents after leaving office. However, when asked which was more serious, a plurality (43%) said Trump's actions were a more serious concern.

This comes as Biden sees incremental improvements in how the public views his handling of issues ranging from the pandemic to the economy to climate change. However, on several important issues, including immigration and gun violence, perceptions of Biden are stagnant.

Similar to the handling of documents, the American public broadly disapproves of how both Republicans and Democrats are doing their job in Congress. Here too, however, Republicans see greater disapproval numbers (72%) than Democrats (60%).

Lastly, as we approach the one-year mark of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, Americans continue to broadly support aiding Ukraine (46% right amount + 20% too little).

About the Study

This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted January 20 to January 21, 2023, by Ipsos using the probability-based KnowledgePanel®. This poll is based on a nationally representative probability sample of 532 adults age 18 or older.

The survey was conducted using KnowledgePanel, the largest and most well-established online probability-based panel that is representative of the adult US population. Our recruitment process employs a scientifically developed addressed-based sampling methodology using the latest Delivery Sequence File of the USPS – a database with full coverage of all delivery points in the US. Households invited to join the panel are randomly selected from all available households in the U.S. Persons in the sampled households are invited to join and participate in the panel. Those selected who do not already have internet access are provided a tablet and internet connection at no cost to the panel member. Those who join the panel and who are selected to participate in a survey are sent a unique password-protected log-in used to complete surveys online. As a result of our recruitment and sampling methodologies, samples from KnowledgePanel cover all households regardless of their phone or internet status and findings can be reported with a margin of sampling error and projected to the general population.

The study was conducted in both English and Spanish. The data were weighted to adjust for gender by age, race/ethnicity, education, Census region, metropolitan status, household income, and party identification. The demographic benchmarks came from 2022 Current Population Survey (CPS) from the US Census Bureau. Party ID benchmarks are from recent ABC News/Washington Post telephone polls. The weighting categories were as follows:

• Gender (Male, Female) by Age (18–29, 30–44, 45–59, and 60+)
• Race/Hispanic Ethnicity (White Non-Hispanic, Black Non-Hispanic, Other or 2+ Races Non-Hispanic, Hispanic)
• Education (High School graduate or less, Some College, Bachelor and beyond)
• Census Region (Northeast, Midwest, South, West)
• Metropolitan status (Metro, non-Metro)
• Household Income (Under $25,000, $25,000-$49,999, $50,000-$74,999, $75,000-$99,999, $100,000-$149,999, $150,000+)
• Party ID (Democrat, Republican, Independent, Something else)

The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, for results based on the entire sample of adults. The margin of sampling error takes into account the design effect, which was 1.13. The margin of sampling error is higher and varies for results based on sub-samples. Sampling error is only one potential source of error. There may be other unmeasured non-sampling error in this or any poll. In our reporting of the findings, percentage points are rounded off to the nearest whole number. As a result, percentages in a given table column may total slightly higher or lower than 100%. In questions that permit multiple responses, columns may total substantially more than 100%, depending on the number of different responses offered by each respondent.

About Ipsos

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