By a 40-point margin of 64-24 percent, most voters say Donald Trump committed crimes before he became president, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll. That in itself is stunning—nearly two-thirds of the country thinks the sitting president is a criminal.
Not even a majority of Republican voters disagree with that sentiment; only a plurality, 48-33 percent, say Trump did not commit crimes prior to being elected. As usual, GOP voters stand alone in their allegiance: "Every other listed party, gender, education, age and racial group says by wide margins that Trump committed crimes."
However, voters are almost evenly split on the question of whether Trump has committed crimes in office: 45 percent think so, while 43 percent don't. That's partly due to what they perceive as criminal versus unethical behavior. Fully 73 percent of voters think a presidential candidate paying money to hide a negative story about himself during the campaign and not disclosing that payment is unethical (including 51 percent of Republicans), but only 40 percent of those respondents say it's criminal, while 21 percent say it's unethical but not criminal.
The vast majority of American voters do want more investigation of Trump, with 58 percent saying Congress should do more to probe "Michael Cohen's claims about President Trump's unethical and illegal behavior." That said, support for impeachment remains low at this time, with only 35 percent supporting the initiation of impeachment proceedings, and 59 percent against it.
Also, voters believe Cohen over Trump by 50-35 percent, with 51-31 percent of independents favoring Cohen. Democrats get a plurality of support for the way they comported themselves during the Cohen hearing, while a majority disapproves of the display GOP lawmakers put on.
Voters approve 41 - 36 percent of the way Democrats in Congress handled Cohen's testimony before the U.S. House Oversight Committee. Voters disapprove 51 - 25 percent of the way Republicans handled the Cohen hearing.
Overall, Trump's approval ratings are underwater at 38-55 percent, on par with his January Q poll rating of 38-57 percent. "Cloudy and 38” is how Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, framed Trump’s forecast. "When two-thirds of voters think you have committed a crime in your past life, and almost half of voters say it's a tossup over whether you committed a crime while in the Oval Office, confidence in your overall integrity is very shaky," Malloy added.
"Add to that, Michael Cohen, a known liar headed to the big house, has more credibility than the leader of the free world." Boom.