Poll shows where Northeast Ohioans stand on criminally charging Jan. 6 rioters

CLEVELAND, Ohio – In a divided country, there’s at least one thing that northeast Ohioans of every political stripe seem to agree on.

A survey of 504 residents of Cuyahoga, Summit, Lake, Geauga, Portage, Medina and Lorain counties conducted by Baldwin Wallace University’s Community Research Institute between Oct. 7 and Oct. 18 found bipartisan backing for criminal prosecutions of rioters who tried to overturn results of the 2020 presidential election by rampaging through the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The poll has a margin of error less than 5 percent.

A whopping 91% of Democrats endorsed charging the rioters, as did 58.7% of independents. Among Republicans, the majority was less resounding, with 54.5 % saying they “strongly” or “somewhat” support criminal charges against the rioters, and 36.4% saying they “strongly” or “somewhat” oppose criminal charges.

There was more party-line disagreement over whether “elected officials” connected to the Jan. 6 events should face charges. A U.S. House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack has indicated it’s got evidence that former President Donald Trump – who urged the crowd to march on the Capitol – and some of his allies might have conspired to commit fraud and obstruction by lying to the public about results of the election and trying to overturn it.

Just 41% of the Republicans who responded to the poll said they would “strongly” or “somewhat” support criminal charges against elected officials connected to the Jan. 6 events, while 36.6 % said they would “strongly” or “somewhat” oppose charges. A 22.4% faction of Republicans said they were “not sure.”

In contrast, 89.7% of Democrats said they would back chages against elected officials, as did more than 60 percent of independents. Slightly more women then men – 67.4% compared to 63.7 % – said they would “somewhat” or “strongly” support presssing charges against public officials.

While none of the public officials who encouraged the march on the U.S. Capitol have faced charges so far, approximately 900 people have been arrested for their role in the attack in the 22 months after it occurred, the Justice Department says.

More than 800 were charged with entering or remaining in a restricted federal building or grounds. Nearly 300 were charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding police officers or employees, including approximately 95 who were charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to police officers.

Of the more than 300 federal defendants who’ve been sentenced for criminal activity on Jan. 6, more than 170 have been sentenced to periods of incarceration.

In late November, Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, the founder and leader of the Oath Keepers, and Kelly Meggs, the leader of the Florida chapter of the organization, were found found guilty by a jury of seditious conspiracy and other charges for crimes related to the Capitol breach.

During the same trial, an Ohio bartender, Jessica Watkins, was found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and four other felony charges. Watkins led a militia group from Champaign County, prosecutors said.