WASHINGTON — More than half of Americans say they’re bothered by Russian hacks of Democratic emails in an effort to help Donald Trump win the election, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows.
Fifty-five percent of Americans say they are at least quite a bit concerned about the Russian hacks, the poll shows. There is a sharp partisan divide, with 86% of Democrats saying they are concerned compared with 29% of Republicans.
However, most Americans do not believe Russian hacking influenced the outcome of the election.
Just 37% say they believe Russian hacking helped Trump defeat Hillary Clinton, while 57% say they think it had no impact.
Broadly, at 31%, more Americans said Trump is “too friendly” toward Russian President Vladimir Putin than the 24% who said he’s “not too friendly.” Another 44% had no opinion.
And about 50% of Americans said they approved of Trump’s handling of the transition, while 41% disapprove, the survey shows. That approval number is significantly below President Barack Obama’s in 2008 (73%) and Bill Clinton’s in 1992 (77%).
The poll of 1,000 adults was conducted December 12-15 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
