Two months after the #MeToo movement took off in late 2017, a poll showed that many Republicans thought credible sexual harassment allegations should be a disqualifier for a politician. While Democrats were more likely to say that in the CNN poll, 37 percent of Republican-leaning voters said a politician facing credible allegations should resign.
The thing was that many Republicans simply didn’t believe that the many such allegations against President Donald Trump qualified. Only about 1 in 5 Republican-leaning voters said they believed the women accusing him were telling the truth, and only 1 in 10 said he should resign over it.
One allegation has now become more credible, with a civil jury Tuesday finding Trump liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll decades ago.
The question is whether that same test applies and whether Republicans think the verdict meets it.
Historical polling on Trump and sexual misconduct reveals that there has generally been a small but significant segment of his party that at least professes to be concerned about such issues and his proximity to them. But partisanship often takes over, and we shouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case again.
We noted after the verdict Tuesday that a November 2017 Quinnipiac poll showed 28 percent of Republicans saying that Trump should be impeached and removed from office if it were proved that he sexually harassed women. That was higher than the percentage of those who said Trump should resign after each of his actual impeachments.
But did they believe Trump did sexually harass women? A Washington Post-ABC News poll around the same time showed 48 percent of Republicans believed Trump had “probably” made unwanted sexual advances to women. Only 23 percent doubted it.
A reasonable question, then, is whether they felt unwanted advances qualified as sexual harassment. What we do know is that whatever they believed Trump had done, it wasn’t a dealbreaker. The same poll showed that nearly 1 in 5 Americans (18 percent) believed Trump had made such unwanted sexual advances but were still planning to vote for him.
Other polling reinforces that the allegations against Trump didn’t clear the threshold for Republicans, even as they had concerns. In a late-2016 poll conducted after the “Access Hollywood” tape was revealed, for instance, about 4 in 10 Republicans said the comments were at least a “big deal” to them, but just 5 percent said they were a “deal breaker.”
Also looming is how GOP women in particular might view this. A December 2017 poll showed 43 percent of Republican women said they had been sexually assaulted at some point in their lives (in this case, defined as being touched “in an inappropriate, sexual manner without your consent”). But the same poll showed GOP women weren’t any more concerned about such allegations against Trump than GOP men; in fact, they were less likely to say Congress should investigate such allegations. Still, 32 percent of them wanted an investigation.
The other key thing to remember here is that people often adjust their prior beliefs when their ally is involved.
A case in point: In a poll two months ago, 73 percent of Republicans said it would be a crime to pay someone to remain silent about an issue that could affect a campaign. This was a reference to Trump’s reimbursement of the hush money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, but it wasn’t presented as such in the poll.
When Trump’s conduct was more in the news and Republicans realized what the question was about, that number was far lower — on the same question by the same pollster. Just 37 percent agreed it was a crime in 2018 when former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was speaking out about the hush money, and just 36 percent said it was after Trump was indicted in connection with the hush money payments in late March of this year.
We should expect more of that when it comes to the Carroll verdict. Certainly, many Republicans will dismiss it out of hand, given that it deals with decades-old conduct, and the trial was held in heavily blue Manhattan (though at least one juror consumed Trump-friendly media, and the verdict was unanimous). The standard of proof was also lower (more likely than not) than it would be in a criminal case (beyond a reasonable doubt).
But if it causes a reevaluation among the small but real number of Republicans who have professed concerns about Trump and these issues, it could have an impact.