More than half of Americans are concerned by reports of Russian hacking during the 2016 election, according to a new national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
Forty-three percent of poll respondents said they are bothered a “great deal” by Russian interference in the election, while 12% more said they were bothered “quite a bit.” The CIA, the FBI and the Director of National Intelligence agreed on findings that Russians interfered in the U.S. presidential election as part of an effort to assist President-elect Donald Trump, the Washington Post reported on Friday, shortly before President Obama publicly warned Russia against hacking.
The poll found a significant partisan divide on the issue of Russian hacking; 86% of Democrats said they were bothered by the interference, compared to just 29% of Republicans who said the same. According to the poll, 49% of independents said they were bothered. Divisions remained regarding Trump’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin—61% of Democrats say the two are too friendly, while just 8% of Republicans said they believed the same.
Of the respondents, 23% said they weren’t bothered at all by the news, while 8% said they were bothered “very little” and 10% the news bothered them “just some.”
Although 55% of respondents said they were concerned about Russian hacking, only 37% said the actions helped Trump win the election, while 57% said it didn’t make a difference.
The NBC/WSJ poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
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